I'm 67 and my mother (a farmers daughter) told me that during the depression men would arrive at her mother's back door early in the morning to chop that days wood for the wood burning stoves and heaters in the house. My grandmother would provide a breakfast of eggs, ham, grits, milk and biscuits for the lucky chopper.
An interesting side to this story is the fact that she had to set a 'start chopping' time. Different men would try to be the first to arrive each morning until it got to where the wood chopping began at 3:00AM. Everyone was very polite and gentlemanly and would not accept anything they hadn't earned. People wouldn't understand that today.
I do remember seeing the Rolling Store at my grandmother's house. He always gave the kids a piece of hard candy. Grandmother would trade eggs for coffee, etc.
That's all I know about that story.
“Everyone was very polite and gentlemanly and would not accept anything they hadn’t earned. People wouldn’t understand that today.”
How True! How Sad (your final sentence).