Story told to me by Audrey.
Audrey was in the fifth grade living in Charlotte, NC with her brother Curtis and Mom Grace. The year was probably 1937 or 38. She and her two year older brother decided they want to go to Rockingham (Cordova) to visit their grandmother and uncle Horace and aunt Nora. They had a couple of slight problems: they didn’t have any money and they didn’t have permission to go. Being creative and great problem solvers they decided that they would hitchhike their way to Cordova, to save money (which they had none), and Curtis had come up with a plan to obtain some.
Aunt Grace had been recently ill and Curtis reasoned that if he took the empty prescription bottle to the local neighbor store that Grace had an account with he could tell a yarn about his mom needing her medicine and they were broke. The store owner bought the story and advanced them 72 cents to purchase the medicine at the drug store. Flush with some spending money and their wide eyed innocence they headed off on their adventure.
They traveled all evening and made it to a small town just before getting to Wadesboro and found a family that offered to share supper with them. During the meal they dodged answering the natural questions that flowed from the adults as to what these youngsters were up to and how come they were on the road. Finally they were given some blankets to make a pallet to sleep on for the night. The next morning Audrey and Curtis awoke to a couple of police officers who weren’t buying their answers. Audrey ultimately gave it up and told them who their mother was and where they were from.
The officers were able to contact Aunt Grace and advised her to come pick them up. Grace had her own slight problem-she didn’t own a car. She got a neighbor to drive her down. Audrey said that was one beautiful sight to see when she spied the car. She knew it was her momma coming to get her. She said Curtis wasn’t near as happy. She was so happy to be riding home in the rumble seat she didn’t worry about the consequences of her and Curtis’ adventure. Children will always be children, I’m thankful nothing bad happened to my cousins and the knowledge that some of the stuff I got into as a child had a precedent.
Le Apprentice 