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Answer:
Important quote of the Crooks:
"A guy sets alone out here at night, maybe readin’ books or thinkin’ or stuff like that. Sometimes he gets thinkin’, an’ he got nothing to tell him what’s so an’ what ain’t so. Maybe if he sees somethin’, he don’t know whether it’s right or not. He can’t turn to some other guy and ast him if he sees it too. He can’t tell. He got nothing to measure by. I seen things out here. I wasn’t drunk. I don’t know if I was asleep. If some guy was with me, he could tell me I was asleep, an’ then it would be all right. But I jus’ don’t know."
Explanation:
In Section 4, Crooks says this to Lennie when Lennie visits him in his room. The elderly stable-hand confesses to the loneliness George recounts in the novella's first chapters. Crooks, a black guy with a disability, is forced to live on the ranch fringes. He can't even enter the white men's bunkhouse or play cards with them. In this stanza, he shows a sad, heartbreaking vulnerability. Crooks' need for a “measuring stick” companion parallels George's previous portrayal of migratory life. The possibility of a farm of their own and a life filled with strong, fraternal relationships holds such attraction for these guys because they are lonely.