Soon after John Boucher’s suicide, a guilt-stricken Higgins assumes responsibility for Boucher’s orphaned children and accordingly swallows his pride to seek work wherever he can find it. He even asks the Hales if they can help him secure a job in the South, since they’ve spoken so highly of the people’s kindness and the favorable cost of living. They quickly dissuade Higgins from this notion, explaining that Southern agricultural life inclines to its own kind of stagnation, which the hot-blooded Higgins couldn’t endure. In addition, Northern working-class people are accustomed to eating meat on a daily basis, which the Southern…