Question

The tenant men squatted down on their hams again to mark the dust with a stick, to figure, to wonder. Their sunburned faces were dark, and their sun-whipped eyes were light. The women moved cautiously . . . After a time the women asked, What did he want?

Answer 1

Had to look for the missing details of this question and here is my answer.
This is actually an excerpt that was taken from "The Grapes of Wrath", and the one that best describes the tone of this passage is that it is SYMPATHETIC.  Hope this answers your question.

Answer 2

Answer:

• Sympathetic

This excerpt belongs to The Grapes of Wrath, a novel by John Steinbeck that was first published in 1938.

It depicts life in the Dust Bowl amid the Great Depression. This tale won the Pulitzer Prize in 1940 and remains a great of American writing.