"Carolina Oddities" from Feb., 1939, issue of Carolina Co-operator

“Carolina Oddities” from the February, 1939, issue of Carolina Co-operator

WHITEVILLE--Mouths of people whose appetites call for pigs’ feet might well water over this story. E.H. Buffkin, who lives on Route 4 out of Whiteville, is the owner of a month old pig with a total of 20 toes. The pig’s back feet boast 12 toes while the front pair struggles along with a mere eight digits. Normal and health in every other respect, the animal was one of a litter of seven, with six perfectly normal brothers and sisters.

ELIZABETH CITY—Folks around Elizabeth City are talking about Jordan Warren’s January sweet potato crop. Jordan, a Negro gardener and painter, now has slips more than an inch in diameter and up to 11 inches long. “I cut the vines and set them out in August,” he explains, “and let the grass grow along with the vines. When frost came the vines continued to grow under the shelter of the grass and are still growing.” Jordan’s last horticultural feat was a watermelon, grown similarly, plucked on Christmas eve several years ago, eaten the following day.

RALEIGH--Sympathetic fellow-officers of Raleigh Police Sergeant Ralph Hargrove are starting a fund to put the sergeant back in the chicken and egg business. Keeping abreast of the times, Hargrove one day last month installed an oil heater device in his chicken house, roosting place for his selected stock of 60 hens. On the morning after the first cold night, he found not a hen alive. Reason: Carbon monoxide gas had asphyxiated the entire flock.

EDENTON--One of Edenton’s rural mail carriers is richer by one cent. Opening a rural mail box one day last month he found a letter, two cents, and a hen’s egg. Around the egg this note was wrapped: “Here is two pennies. I hain’t got no more but here is a hen egg for the other pennie.” Thrifty by nature, the mail carrier stopped on his route, sold the egg to a storekeeper for two cents, stamped the letter, and pocketed his profit.

DUNN—Barley McNeill was up again in the Dunn recorder’s court last month. Checking over Barley’s past record, Recorder W.B. Ivey was mildly shocked. “How many times have you been tried,” he asked.

“Three times,” said the defendant. “Once for being drunk, once for breaking tombstones in a graveyard, and once for stealing beans.” For his second public drunkenness charge, Barley McNeill got 30 days on the roads.