No, but it does make me want to b*tchslap the people who think it's OK to take food away from a kid because they can't pay. Why should this kid have to take care of something the grownups shouldn't be doing in the first place???
I remember being told this story in gradeschool in the 1970s. Our town librarian referred to this as the year 'Eighteen-Hundred-and-Froze-To-Death' and I've never forgotten it.