Who Is This Little Girl, Abandoned Four Years Ago? Aug. 6, 1924

The Office Cat

A vale of sadness was drawn about me when I started out to investigate conditions generally in and around Raleigh. I must say I have met with bitter disappointment in this beautiful city. A thirst for gain or for the temporal pleasures of this world has evidently caused sad neglect here.

I have found many things about which I intended to talk, but all of my attention and thought has been drawn to something I feel constrained to take up before going into the many other things I seem important to you.

I didn’t intend to get sentimental, but when I reflect over the hardness of heart of some people and the utter disregard they have for their own safety and the lives of others, it makes my heart bleed. There are two truths laid down in the book of books that should demand their attention:

“Be sure your sins will find you out,” and

“There is nothing covered that shall not be revealed, there is nothing hidden that shall not be seen.”

Out a few miles from Raleigh, in a quiet, secluded spot, I find an old lady living in a cozy little white house very nicely furnished and just back of this is an old-time worn log hut. The old lady explained to me that until recently the log hut was her home. She said the new house was built in December of last year and up to that time she and her son lived in the log hut. She also explained that the log hut was within a few hundred feet of where she was born. She looks to be somewhere in the sixties and one can readily see that she is absolutely void of culture and refinement, having had no educational advantages whatsoever, she’s probably never been to school and has seldom been out of sight of her home spot.

I found living with this old woman a little 4-year-old baby girl—a beautiful blue-eyed, fair-skinned child with every earmark of being the offspring of well blooded parents. The very expression on this child’s face speaks louder than words. Her countenance shows a shrouded mystery and she seems to say by her manner and gaze, “What am I doing here!” and I looked from the child to the old lady and from the old lady to the child and found myself saying silently, “What are you doing here?”

The contrast is so striking that I asked, “Whose child is this!”

“I don’t know whose it was, but it’s mine now,” the old lady remarked. “One cold night in March, 1920, while it was ‘er snowing, our dog began to bark and my son woke up and called to me and asked me what the dog was barking at. I heard no footsteps or vehicle, but a few minutes later I heard a peculiar sound and got up and opened the door. I found this child lying bundled up on the doorsteps. She only weighed about three pounds and I judged her to be about nine days old. I took her in and cared for her and have had her ever since. I have no idea who brought her here. There’s never been any one here who gave the least indication of knowing anything about her.”

This circumstance, coupled with the old lady’s story, naturally led to some investigation and analysis. She says she was offered a thousand dollars for the baby just a few days after she was left there. She has built a new house. She admits frequent visitors, but says they are strangers. Conservative figures on her income from the little farm raises a question as to her ability to procure funds with which to do building.

I found this was an old story to most Raleigh people. The papers reported at the time a baby was left on the old lady’s steps. No investigation was made. No attempt to find who the baby belonged to. No effort made to ascertain the truth as to whether it was left in the way reported. No doubt the mother could have been found at that time. No doubt the mother is right here in Raleigh and may read these lines.

All the circumstances surrounding this child are going to be thoroughly investigated and the truth will surely be made known, so, dear ones, you had better voluntarily assume the shame you have been hiding through this guise for these four years at the expense of a little innocent child that you brought into this world and cast off to battle this life weighed down with shame. Your sin is double if you should get by with this. This child should be given a chance and not have to bear the burden and humiliation of your wrong. Remember, too, that your career will be nearly run when she reaches young womanhood, when the crime you have tried to conceal will begin to throw its weight on her innocent shoulders. What chance will she have? Go to your child and save your future.

I made a picture of this little girl. Think of her future if left out there in the environment she is now in. What educational or social advantages will she have?

“Be sure your sins will find you out.”

“There is nothing covered that shall not be revealed.”

From page 5 of the Carolina Jeffersonian, Raleigh, N.C., Aug. 6, 1924. To see a photograph of the 4-year-old girl in this story, go to:

newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn92073001/1924-08-06/ed-1/seq-5/#words=AUGUST+6%2C+1924

The Good Old Days, Ruth Waters, Washington County

By Ruth Waters, Washington County Extension Homemaker

The Good Old Days—no electricity—no indoor toilets—no locked doors—putting in tobacco from dawn to dusk.

When I was around five, I remember going out to where my mother was picking cotton. I wanted to help, so my mother told me to use my straw hat. When I finally had it filled, I told her I would never pick any more cotton. So far, I have kept that promise.

During my first five years of school, I walked two miles to a one-room school house. We had one teacher who taught all seven grades.

The dress I got married in was the most expensive dress I had ever owned. It cost a whopping $2.98!

You didn’t buy material then to make quilts out of. We all wore homemade clothes. Scraps of material from these were what we used. We never hung quilts on walls either. They went on the beds! Feed bags were used for lining them. We hung them from the ceiling during the day to work on them. Then they were rolled up at night so the sitting room could be used for its purpose.

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This remembrance was published in The Precious Past, a collection of stories by Extension Homemakers that was published by the Washington County Extension Homemakers in 1992. Copyright, Washington County Extension Homemakers.