The story indicates that the Depression created great poverty in all parts of the country, and especially among the black community. According to the narrator, the children in her shantytown in rural Maryland were not quite aware of the level of poverty experienced by their families. This is because they had never experienced or seen a life better than theirs. They had grown up without radios and magazines and did not know the kind of lives that people in other parts of the nation lived.

The narrator’s father has been out of work for a long time. Her mother thinks that her husband’s search for work will be fruitful in the near future, for “everybody else was out of work” at that point in time. When her husband complains about his inability to take good care of his household, she consolingly tells him that “Honey, you took good care of us when you had it. Ain’t nobody got nothing nowadays.” She is referring to the hardship that the Depression has brought down on most households.

Towards the end of the story, the narrator wakes up at four in the morning after hearing a pitiful conversation between her parents on the devastating effects of the Depression. She goes to Miss Lottie’s garden and destroys the beautiful marigolds that she dislikes lots as they do not fit in with her sad, poverty-stricken and cheerless life. However, in doing this, she finally understands Miss Lottie’s reasons for tending to the marigolds—she was simply trying to “create beauty in the midst of ugliness and sterility."