noon
She had given her last dollar to a policeman the night before to keep from arrest . The oldest boy had gone to school without breakfast . The little children were playing in the street -- they had begged food at the neighbors ' and she had no heart to stop them . At noon when little Tom came in he found his mother sitting before a number of paper sacks upon the table waiting for him . Then the family ate out of the sacks the cold meal she had bought at the grocery store with John Dexter 's money . That night Violet shivered out into the cold over her usual route . She was walking through the railroad yards in Magnus when suddenly she came upon a man who dropped stealthily out of a dead engine .