In Chapter 1, what does George tell Lennie to do if he gets in trouble at their new job site in Of Mice and Men?

In Chapter I of Steinbeck's Of Mice and
Men George tells Lennie:

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"Well, look. Lennie--if you jus' happen to get
in trouble like you always done before, I want you to come right here an' hide in the
brush."

"Hide in the brush," said Lennie
slowly.

"Hide in the brush till I come for you. Can you
remember that?"

We know that
Lennie got in trouble in the town of Weed for making a girl think he was trying to rape
her, but we don't know what other kinds of trouble George is referring to. George says
"like you always done before." This sounds as if Lennie has caused George many problems,
so many that George is actually expecting him to cause another problem when they start
working at their next job. We wonder whether Lennie's other misbehavior also involved
girls.

Steinbeck evidently has George tell Lennie what to
do if he gets in trouble because George will be the only one who knows where Lennie is
to be found when the men at the ranch go hunting for him. That means that in the final
chapter George will be able to get to Lennie first and will have the opportunity to kill
him with the German Luger he stole from Carlson. This is to be a mercy killing to save
Lennie from being tortured and lynched by the angry
mob.

George does not intend to shoot Lennie when he tells
him where to hide. He intends to get to Lennie and help him escape, as he did in Weed.
However, after seeing the dead body of Curley's wife in the barn and realizing that
Lennie is becoming a potential rapist and killer, George steals the Luger and goes to
find Lennie with the intention of shooting him with it. George feels personally
responsible for the girl's death, since he brought Lennie to the ranch and had to plead
and argue with the Boss to get him his job.

George has many
reasons for wanting to kill Lennie now. He feels he can no longer control him, and he
can't be watching him all the time. He could get lynched himself. Or else he could get
arrested as an accessory--especially if he tried to help Lennie escape. This is a far
more serious situation than the one in Weed which almost got them lynched. This is
murder. At least it looks like murder in connection with attempted rape. The law would
be after them if they tried to escape together. Their names and descriptions are known.
They would have to find work somewhere. They couldn't just hide in the mountains
indefinitely.

So George had no idea when he told Lennie to
come to this spot by the river and hide in the brush that he was going to kill his
friend there. That is characteristic of Steinbeck's realistic writing. The novelette is
heavily plotted, but it is plotted in such a way that things just seem to
happen.