I met a poor man, a poor, lame man who'd been away out West and got hurt bad.

Folks thought he was dead.
His wife thought so and died grievin' for him.

She left a little baby girl, only seven or eight year old.

When this man come back, well again but poor, to look up his family, he found his wife had passed away and the child had been sent off, just to get rid of her, to a stranger in another town.

That stranger fully meant to send her off, too; he said so dozens of times.