What is the story about a place where no one says that they're poor or in "modest"

[Water Baby]

situations but instead? they pretend that nothing is abnormal. One thing that happened was that this lady had a school's charity maid working for her, and her arms weren't strong enough to hold a tray full of tea so they kept the tray under a sofa. no one acted like it was unusual. Also, a man from a foreign place came around and freely told everyone that he was poor and it didn't bother him to say so. But this bothered everyone else because they simply didn't understand why he was accepting his fate.
Sounds like a good read, eh? If u know, please let me know so i can read the rest of this little ditty.