Lennie’s touching of a girl’s dress in Weed is what forced them to leave their last job (page8).What happened in Weed is first mentioned by George when he says to Lennie “An’ you ain’t gonna do no bad things like you done in Weed, neither. The woman was wearing a red dress, and Lennie tried to touch it. She got scared and started to struggle, which only made things worse because Lennie became confused and held on tighter. George heard them and had to hit Lennie with a fence post to make him let go. The woman went to the police and told them she was raped. Both men had to hide in an irrigation ditch until night, when they left town. George is careful when he talks about Weed; he doesn’t want the wrong people to know (Curley and the boss) .The only person George tells is Slim; he shares his worries that something like that will happen again.
An argument starts on page 62 between Curley and Slim and later Carlson joins. The argument started because Curley was accusing Slim of knowing where his wife is, when Curley sees Lennie laughing he starts to pick on him and says” What the hell you laughin at?” when Lennie replies with a mere “Huh?” Curley becomes enraged and starts to fight him. Lennie is too terrified to fight back until George shouts “Get him, Lennie. Don’t let him do it.” Curley’s fist was swinging when Lennie reached for it .Suddenly it was engulfed by Lennie’s, who was watching Curley flop around. George slapped Lennie again and again and still he held on to the closed fist, Curley was now white, shrunken, crying and becoming weak. By the time Lennie had let go Curley’s hand needed serious attention by a physician (page64) Slim says “We got to get him in to a doctor.” “Looks to me like ever’ bone in his han’ is bust.”
Lennie is hopeful that because a puppy is bigger than a mouse, it will be strong enough to survive his petting. Lennie is given a pup by Slim and being true to his nature he kills it. Lennie was alone in the barn talking to his puppy, which is dead (page84). Lennie still strokes it, saying, "Why do you got to get killed? You ain't so little as mice. I didn't bounce you hard". He fears he has done a bad thing and that he won't get to tend the rabbits. He scoops a little hollow and lays the puppy in it and covers it over with hay, he continues to stare at the mound he made and says “This ain’t no bad thing like I got to go hide in the brush.Oh! no. This ain’t .I’ll tell George I foun’ it dead.” This is the last animal Lennie kills in the novel and it foreshadows what will happen next, the killing of Curley’s wife.
Curley's wife finds Lennie alone and tries to start a conversation. Lennie tells her that he isn’t allowed to talk to her, but she persists. She asks what Lennie he covered in the hay and Lennie tells her about the dead puppy; she tells him not to worry about talking to her, and that no one will notice because they're all playing horseshoes. Curley's wife begins talking to Lennie, who isn’t listening, telling him how lonely she is, how much she dislikes Curley and how she missed an opportunity to become an actress and live in Hollywood and wear nice clothes twice. Lennie ignores her story and starts daydreaming about the rabbits. When Curley's wife asks him what he likes so much about rabbits, Lennie says: "I like to pet nice things" (page 88). Curley's wife is frightened at first by his confession, but soon realizes that Lennie is not mean. She says that she is the same way and sometimes likes to sit and feel her own hair. She invites Lennie to feel how soft it is, Lennie enjoys the feel of Curley's wife's hair, but he likes it a bit too much. She tells him not to mess it up and moves sideways, Lennie in a panic grabs on firmly. Curley's wife screams and Lennie, not wanting George to hear, covers her mouth and nose. As she continues to struggle, Lennie becomes angry and tells her to be quiet, but she is too scared to stop. Lennie shakes her to try and restrain her, but breaks her neck instead. Realizing that he has "done a real bad thing" (page100), Lennie scoops some hay onto her
dead body and steps out of the barn with the dead puppy in his coat.
Candy goes into the barn looking for Lennie, and finds Curley's dead wife. Shocked, he runs to get George, who is equally angry. Candy asks who did it, but George knows: "I should of knew," he says, "I guess maybe way back in my head I did" (page 92). Both men realize that Curley will want Lennie lynched and that their dream of a place of their own has been shattered by Lennie's actions. George says sadly: "I think I knowed we'd never do her. He usta like to hear about it so much I got to thinking maybe we would" (page 93).
Lennie was constantly in search of a larger pet. Mice died too easily, so did puppies, even humans weren’t big enough to handle his ‘petting’. When Curley’s wife invited Lennie to touch her hair a careful reader could immediately recognize the danger of this invitation. The soft, dead mouse, the soft, dead puppy and now the soft, dead person. This proves that as the novel goes on his petting obsessions worsens.