Neighbors across the street left their small child outside in the dark by herself, crying for her mom?

I'm still in high school, and not a parent, but I wanted to get some opinions on this situation and figured this would be the best place to ask. I was sitting outside of my house this evening (around 8:00) with my mom, and we heard the sound of a little girl calling out from across the street. She was calling out; "Mommy", "Mommy help me." "Help." She sounded pretty distressed, and was clearly crying. She stood on their driveway at the window on the side of the house, and she would call out about once every one or two minutes. No screaming, just sort of yowling. It seemed odd to me that she wouldn't go to the front door; instead she just stood at the window on the side of the house. We stayed where we were, listening to her call for her mother, for a few minutes. We figured the mother would be coming out to get her at any moment. The sun had already gone down a while before she started crying but at this point it had actually gotten completely dark, and this just seemed a little too strange, so we decided to walk over to the house. We headed straight to the front door rather than speaking to the little girl first, figuring that, from the perspective of the little girl, two strangers approaching at night would probably be scary. When the woman answered the door, and my mother explained that we live across the street and heard her daughter crying (alone, at night) she seemed pretty unfazed. She walked over to her daughter and brought her inside as we left, and that was that. My mom said to me that she'd seen this happen before, but it was during the day, and so she didn't feel the need to knock on the door like we did this time. It seemed silent in the house when the woman opened the door, and she spoke pretty quietly, so that also seemed a little strange to me. Surely she must have been able to hear her. My question is this: Does this situation seem abnormal to you, or am I overreacting? It seems like this family could possibly be abusive. Also, if this happens again, what should we do about it? The girl was probably around 6 or 7 years old, by the way. via /r/Parenting http://ift.tt/2dao40q