When I was a child, my parents often took me to an old house in a thick forest. No other children ever stayed there. I didn't even have the choice of playing with a brother or sister. I could never understand what the attraction  of the house was, even for my parents, who enjoyed nothing better than to sit in silence with a good book. The woman in the house, my father's distant cousin, was a terrible cook and her food was _ . One day, when I was wandering around the garden behind the house, I noticed a wooden house which had clearly been abandoned . As I walked towards it, I heard a noise, like an animal moving hurriedly away. Then I saw a man with a long beard standing at the door. I was greatly surprised. "Please don't tell them you saw me," he said. "They never use this place, and I have nowhere else to live." "Don't worry," I said. "I won't tell anyone. But are you all right out here? I mean--do you have enough to eat?" The old man shook his head. The same evening, I took a small plastic bag into the dining room and, while no one was looking, emptied some of the food into it. Later, I got out of the back door secretly and gave the food to the old man, whose name I had discovered was Taff. I had never seen anything else as lovely as the smile of satisfaction on Taff's face when he ate the food. From then on, my visits to the old house had a purpose, and I enjoyed every minute of the rest of my stay. What can we know about the old man from the passage?
He was poor and hungry. He helped to repair the old house. He liked to play hide-and-seek with the writer. He raised many animals.