was all
right. It got to be a reg'lar joke with the neighbors to ask Old Man
Bob how many children he had, and he'd give a big laugh and say, 'Ten,
neighbor, and all of 'em gals but nine.'

"Well, of course Annie was bound to be spoiled, especially as her
mother died when she was jest four years old. How Ann 'Liza ever stood
Old Man Bob and them nine boys as long as she did was a mystery to
everybody. Ann 'Liza had done her best to manage Annie, with Old Man
Bob pullin' against her all the time, but after she died Annie took
the place and everything and everybody on it. Old Man Bob had raised
all his boys on spare-the-rod-and-spile-the-child principle, but when
Annie come, he turned his back on Solomon and give out that Annie
mustn't be crossed by anybody. Sam Amos asked him once how he come to
change his mind so about raisin' children, and Old Man Bob said he was
of the opinion that that text ought to read, 'Spare the rod and spile
the boy'; that Solomon had too much regyard for women to want to whip
a gal child. If ever there was an old idiot he was one; I mean Old Man
Bob, not Solomon; though Solomon wasn't as wise as he might 'a' been
in some things.

"Well, Annie was a headstrong, high-tempered child to begin with; and
havin' nobody to control her, she got to be the worst young one, I
reckon, in the State o' Kentucky. I used to feel right sorry for her
little brothers. They couldn't keep a top or a ball or marble or any
plaything to save their lives. Annie would cry for 'em jest for pure
meanness, and whatever it was that Annie cried for they had to give it
up or git a whippin'. She'd break up their rabbit-traps and their
bird-cages and the little wheelbarrers and wagons they'd make, and
they didn't have any peace at home, pore little motherless things. I
ricollect one day little Jim come runnin' over to my house draggin'
his wagon loaded up with all his playthings, his little saw and hammer
and some nails the cyarpenters had give him when Old Man Bob had his
new stable built, and says he, 'Aunt Jane, please let me keep my tools
over here. Annie says she's goin' to throw 'em in the well, and
pappy'll make me give 'em to her if she cries for 'em.' Them tools
stayed at my house till Jim outgrowed 'em, and he and Henry, the other
little one, used to come and stay by the hour playin' with my Abram.

"It was all Old Man Bob could do to git a housekeeper to stay with him
when Annie got older. One spring she broke up a