In The Harvest Gypsies-Article 'll, How would you describe how the death of their four-year-old son set off a disastrous chain of events for the family? (Support your answer with textual evidence)

In Article II, Steinbeck explains how much money the families need to live. The father is the primary worker, and by working full time and maximizing “every harvest without delay,” he can earn up to 400 dollars. If not, “if anything happens, if his old car breaks down, if he is late and misses a harvest or two…,” then the earnings will go down to as little as 150 dollars.
Steinbeck met the family whose boy had died two weeks after the tragic event. He finds them living in a tent that is filthy inside and full of flies; the children including the baby have dirty clothes and have not been bathed. When their four-year-old died, it was after several weeks of illness. The parents had noticed that he was “lackadaisical” and possibly “feverish.” One night, however, he was wracked with convulsions and died.
With that death, it seems they just lost hope. That event brought “a change of mind in this family…, [a] paralyzed dullness with which the mind protects itself against too much sorrow and too much pain.” The father is “no longer alert; he isn’t quick with piece-work….His spirit is losing caste rapidly.” All this means that the father will not be able to work enough to make the 400 dollars.
The “dullness,” “sullenness,” and “taciturn” impression is also seen in the surviving children. They hide in ditches rather than go to school. The “ragged little things...are scorned in school.”
While the family had previously earned enough to be the “middle class of the squatters’ camp,” because of the loss of earnings and the overall despair, within “a few months this family will slip down to the lower class.” They have lost their dignity, and their “spirit [has turned] to sullen anger.”
https://www.scribd.com/doc/127985836/John-Steinbeck-The-Harvest-Gypsies