Step 1: Answer:
Robert Frost's ‘A Roadside Stand’ highlights the stark inequality between rich, indifferent city-dwellers and poor rural roadside vendors who set up small stands hoping for a share of passing trade and a little money to improve their hard lives. The poem is a sharp critique of urban society's neglect of rural poverty, showing sympathy for the villagers' unmet hopes while exposing how the city exploits and then ignores the countryside.