"I can do that," he replied, nodding. Slowly nodding. "Guess it's easy to forget eatin's somethin' I gotta do too, when I'm the only way some of these people ever see a meal, some weeks."

Not days. Weeks. It all added up. And now and then, there were fewer mouths to worry about.

But it was never because somebody had ever found any good way out of the poverty.