the two men have recently arrived at the ranch. George is playing cards with the other men in the bunkhouse when Lennie brings up the dream farm. The quote below is powerful because George, in this instance, adds so much detail about the farm, describing it as apastoral paradise:

"Well, it's ten acres," said George. "Got a little win'mill. Got a little shack on it, an' a chicken run. Got a kitchen, orchard, cherries, apples, peaches, 'cots, nuts, got a few berries. They's a place for alfalfa and plenty water to flood it. They's a pig pen-' ... "An' we could have a few pigs. I could build a smoke house like the one gran'pa had, an' when we kill a pig we can smoke the bacon and the hams, and make sausage an' all like that. An' when the salmon run up river we could catch a hundred of 'em an' salt 'em down or smoke 'em. We could have them for breakfast. They ain't nothing so nice as smoked salmon. When the fruit come in we could can it-and tomatoes, they're easy to can. Ever' Sunday we'd kill a chicken or a rabbit. Maybe we'd have a cow or a goat, and the cream is so God damn thick you got to cut it with a knife and take it out with a spoon."

The dream farm is a contrast to the life on the ranch, and George speaks directly in it to his own anxieties. The ranch makes him uneasy because he has already had a run-in with Curley, so he, like Lennie, is glad to retreat to the dream farm as a safe and idyllic spot.

George's imagination runs away with him as he describes the cornucopia of food the farm would offer, from salmon to fruit to nuts to ham and chickens. Notably, George describes it as a place that is the opposite to the ranch—a place where he'd have control over earning money, and where he and Lennie would "belong." This is a contrast to the uneasy feelings of not belonging that real life on the ranch brings up in him.

The dream farm represents the American dream, and most of the characters in the story respond to it warmly. It represents the autonomy, dignity, community, and prosperity that all the men yearn for.

In the first chapter Lennie and George recite their dreams.

After they step off the bus a short distance from Soledad, the two men walk into the clearing and make camp. Lennie reminds George that they are going to work on a ranch, George replies, "Awright....But we're gonna sleep here because I got a reason." When Lennie asks for ketchup for their beans, George becomes upset, but Lennie is hurt.  So, George comforts him, and reassures him that he wants Lennie to stay with him.

Then, Lennie pleads, "Come on George. Tell me. Please George...." George recites as his voice grows deeper with feeling. He mentions how the other displace men of the Depression are lonely and without family, but he and Lennie have someone to talk to and someone who cares about them.

"We got somebody to talk to that gives a damn about us....Someday--we're gonna get the jack together and we're gonna have a little house and a couple of acres an' a cow and some pigs and--"An' live off the fatta the lan'," Lennie shouted. "An' have rabbits...."...we'll have a big vegetable patch and a rabbit hutch and chickens. And when it rains in the winter,...we'll build up a fire in the stove and set around it' an' listen to the rain comin' down on the roof.

Lennie especially is greatly comforted by this "dream" of ownership and companionship. George does not really believe that they will attain it; nevertheless, he finds it comforting to recite what they might do, and, after a while, George begins to start believing that a little farm may just be a possibility, especially after Candy, the old swamper, asks to join in their plans.

We actually see quite a few references to this.  Lennie clearly has troubles with his memory, yet after George gets angry and tries to console Lennie, Lennie quickly demands, "Tell me--like you done before."  For Lennie to remember the farm and not the girl in Weed or the fact that George has his workcard means that George has repeated the story.

When George does start telling the story, "Lennie broke in," which means that Lennie recognizes the story.  The next lines are in italics, suggesting that Lennie is repeating them word for word from some original.  "But not us!  An' Why?  Because... because I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you, and that's why."

In the last chapter, you see a repetition of these words that is so close that it's almost as if these two have memorized the words.

Lennie (prompting George): "Because--"

George: "Because I got you an' --"

"An' I got you.  We got each other, that's what."

So clearly, this story has become something of a personal mythology or mantra for them.

Identifying a quote from John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men that suggests these gentlemen's future is not difficult, as the two protagonists, George and Lennie, discuss their dreams for their future. Yet, somehow, we know that these dreams will not be realized. Steinbeck's novel takes place during the Great Depression and follows George and Lennie as these poor, itinerant ranch-hands seek a place they can call home while earning just enough to survive until the next payday. The sense of foreboding, however, emanates from their discussion early in the novel about Lennie's, a giant of a man with a mental handicap that limits his thought processes to that of a young child, inability to have a pet rabbit or mouse that he doesn't accidentally kill by virtue of his enormous physical strength. As Of Mice and Men progresses, however, Steinbeck's unseen narrator depicts the two men talking about their future -- about their dreams of someday having their own ranch or farm. It is still within that opening chapter that Steinbeck provides the following exchange that details that dream. George and Lennie are discussing the attribute that gives them a brighter outlook than the others they encounter as they travel the region searching for employment. In this exchange, Lennie is excitedly prompting George to recite their shared vision of a happy future:

 “Go on now, George!”

“You got it by heart. You can do it yourself.”

“No, you. I forget some a’ the things. Tell about how it’s gonna be.”

“O.K. Someday—we’re gonna get the jack together and we’re gonna have a little house and a couple of acres an’ a cow and some pigs and—”

“An’ live off the fatta the lan’,” Lennie shouted. “An’ have rabbits. Go on, George! Tell about what we’re gonna have in the garden and about the rabbits in the cages and about the rain in the winter and the stove, and how thick the cream is on the milk like you can hardly cut it. Tell about that, George.”

“Why’n’t you do it yourself? You know all of it.”

“No . . . . you tell it. It ain’t the same if I tell it. Go on . . . . George. How I get to tend the rabbits.”

“Well,” said George, “we’ll have a big vegetable patch and a rabbit hutch and chickens.

Lennie's infatuation with rabbits serves as a sort of premonition for the tragedy to come. It is that earlier discussion when George is reminding his larger, simple-minded friend of the latter's repeated accidental killing of any soft, furry animal he holds that suggests a dimmer future lies ahead. As the novel progresses towards its fateful conclusion, the reality of George and Lennie's existence blots out any suggestion of a brighter future. Lennie's infatuation with soft, furry animals is transferred to Curly's attractive wife, whom the giant accidentally kills, prompting George's mercy killing of his friend in the novel's final scene. In the end, Lennie is dead, and George is alone to ponder his existence without the only friend he has known.