He didn't see why he should have so little after so much hard work.
He was puzzled to account for it all.

His mind--the average mind--was weary with trying to solve an insoluble problem.

His neighbors, who had got along a little better than himself, were free with advice and suggestion as to the cause of his persistent poverty.
Old man Bacon, the hardest-working man in the county, laid it to Burns's lack of management.

Jim Butler, who owned a dozen farms (which he had taken on mortgages), and who had got rich by buying land at government price and holding for a rise, laid all such cases as Burns's to "lack of enterprise, foresight." But the larger number, feeling themselves in the same boat with Burns, said: "I d' know.

Seems as if things get worse an' worse.