How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
Chick knew how difficult it was to say no to a little, ragged girl with a sweat-streaked face, lugging a five-gallon pail of berries. [….] It was the way Chick made them do it. It felt like begging. (2.6)
Poverty can totally knock a person's pride, and Polly Ann has felt that sting acutely from her earliest memories. The memory of selling berries at the fancy Armond house to make a little money stays with Polly Ann, and she is determined never to put her children through that indignity.
Quote #2
However, in a few minutes she was back, handing him a done-up package, and the strange thing to him was that she said thank you after taking so much pains to help him. So he thanked her, which seemed more reasonable, and got out of the store as quickly as he could. (11.23)
This quote contrasts what life with money is like and the act of asking for money. From Polly Ann's memory, we see that it's humiliating having to go door-to-door, selling items to scrap together a little cash. But in this scene, Tom is the one doing the buying: he's getting a $2 (more than $50 today!) shirtwaist for his mother for Christmas. It's Tom's first time ever going to a store to buy something, so he's not used to the power shift.
Quote #3
The Hulbert House was the biggest hotel in Boonville, where political visitors or sportsmen on their way into the woods put up. It had always looked very impressive to Tom, with its walls of gray limestone and a six-pillared portico, three stories high, with fancy railed balconies between them at the second and third floors. It had never occurred to Tom to look inside the building. It looked far too costly for a boy like him. But going into it didn't faze Mr. Hook a bit. (23.4)
There's a whole side to life in town that Tom has never experienced because of his family's finances. Mr. Hook's ease in the upscale hotel highlights how different his life is from Tom's.