Walter Cunningham is one of Scout's classmates in first grade. On their first day of school, Miss Caroline, the teacher, offers him some money to buy lunch and then to pay her back the next day. Walter refuses, so Scout deems it necessary to explain to the teacher the following about the Cunninghams:
"The Cunninghams never took anything they can't pay back--no church baskets and no scrip stamps. They never took anything off of anybody, they get along on what they have. They don't have much, but they get along on it" (20).
Thus, Walter was honoring his family by not taking the money for lunch. But when he's invited to someone's house for dinner, that's an invitation that a guest does not have to repay, so he goes to Jem and Scout's.
The guest-host relationship is a non-verbal understanding that whatever a guest asks for, the guest gets without any complaining from the host. Atticus and Jem know that, but it's apparent when Scout objects to Walter's drowning vegetables in syrup that she does not know this. While Calpurnia sets Scout straight in the kitchen, and teaches her to be a better host, Walter enjoys those vegetables because that's probably the only time he gets to taste sugar. His family probably never buys candy or syrup because those things are luxuries. Walter must have known that the Finches were well enough off to ask for syrup and whether or not he knew that it didn't go on vegetables doesn't matter. The fact is, the boy lives without so much, and he was probably so hungry, that it doesn't matter what you eat when you're hungry. In fact, when someone is hungry, anything looks good to eat--drowned in syrup or not!
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