The novel, which takes place during the Great Depression, begins beside the Salinas River near Soledad, California, where two migrant workers, Lennie Small and George Milton, are walking on their way to a nearby ranch. They had recently escaped from a farm near Weed where Lennie, a mentally yet docile man, was wrongly accused of rape when he touched a woman to feel her soft dress. George is his physical opposite, a small man with …showed first 75 words of 957 total…

…showed last 75 words of 957 total…Wife and that he has lost the possibility of having a house with a rabbit hutch. George begins to tell Lennie about their plans for a house and the rabbit hutch when he shoots Lennie in the back of the head with Carlson's gun. Upon hearing this, the other men find George and Lennie. George tells them that Lennie had stolen the gun and he shot Lennie when he got the gun back from him.