Walter Cunningham’s face told everybody in the first grade he had hookworms. His absence of shoes told us how he got them. People caught hookworms going barefooted in barnyards and hog wallows. If Walter had owned any shoes he would have worn them the first day of school and then discarded them until mid-winter. He did have on a clean shirt and neatly mended overalls.
– Harper Lee
To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 2. Walter Cunningham Jr., son of poor farmer Walter Cunningham, is a boy in Scout’s first-grade class. Everybody about him speaks of his poverty.