How we cite our quotes: (Line)
Quote #1
Half in appeal, but half as if to keep
The life from spilling. (21-22)
Notice how life here is not something that is lost, but something spilled. It almost sounds like another work implement the boy was working with, but he spilled a little—grim stuff.
Quote #2
He lay and puffed his lips out with his breath. (29)
The boy's breathing seems like hard work at this point. Here we get another linkage of work, life, and ultimately death. Despite the boy's hard work in this scene, he dies. Bad times. Of course, if you think of it in a broader sense, despite all our own hard work, we'll die too. Super-colossal bummer, no?
Quote #3
Little—less—nothing!—and that ended it.
No more to build on there. And they, since they
Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs. (32-34)
Death here seems to crush the emotion out of the living—because there is work to be done (and death is done with its own work), the family moves on.