What is the importance of the following quotation from "A Worn Path"? "Without warning, she had seen with her own eyes a flashing nickel fall out...

In Welty's
"," Phoenix is so poor that a nickel, to her, is a great amount of money.  She gets
excited when she sees the nickel fall out of the man's pocket.  This puts her in a precarious
position.  First, we can assume she is hoping that the man does not realize he has lost the
nickel.  Then, after she picks it up, we can assume she hopes that he doesn't realize she has
his nickel.  She feels apprehension because she doesn't want to get caught.  She also, though,
as she says, feels shame for picking up the man's nickel:

God watching me the whole time.  I come to stealing.

This is a sick, distorted world Phoenix lives in.  It is a Southern Gothic world. 
Tension is heightened when the man points his rifle at her face.  The reader, like Phoenix,
doesn't know if he points the gun at her because he knows she stole his nickel, or for some
other reason.  As it turns out, he points the gun at her just for kicks. 

This quote and the entire situation is indicative of the world Phoenix lives
in.