The little boy with the corn – what happens? What does what happened tell you about the situation Ishmael and his friends are in?

In Chapter Four, Beah and his companions experience hunger and thirst the likes of which none of them had encountered before. They scavenge abandoned farms and even stooped to assaulting a little boy who had two boiled ears of corn to himself. The boy’s parents, rather than confronting the young men, instead give them each an ear of corn; Beah assumes pity saved them from punishment. Beah feels guilty about their pillage, but accepts that they had no other option. From this, we can infer that they were desperate.