ll the hen nests and
turkey nests on the farm, and they had to buy chickens all summer and
turkeys all next winter. They used to tell how she stood and hollered
for two hours one day because the housekeeper wouldn't let her put her
hand into a kittle o' boilin' lye soap. It's my belief that she was
all that kept Old Man Bob from marryin' again in less'n a year after
Ann 'Liza died. He courted three or four widders and old maids round
the neighborhood, but there wasn't one of 'em that anxious to marry
that she'd take Old Man Bob with Annie thrown in. As soon as she got
old enough, Old Man Bob carried her with him wherever he went. County
Court days you'd see him goin' along on his big gray mare with Annie
behind him, holdin' on to the sides of his coat with her little fat
hands, her sunbonnet fallin' off and her curls blowin' all around her
face,--like as not she hadn't had 'em combed for a week,--and in the
evenin' about sunset here they'd come, Annie in front fast asleep, and
Old Man Bob holdin' her on one arm and guidin' his horse with the
other. Harvestin' times Annie'd be out in the field settin' on a shock
o' wheat and orderin' the hands around same as if she was the
overseer; and Old Man Bob'd jest stand back and shake his sides
laughin' and say: 'That's right, honey. Make 'em move lively. If it
wasn't for you, pappy couldn't git his harvestin' done.'

"Every fall and spring he'd go to town to buy clothes for her, and
people used to say the storekeepers laid in a extry stock jest for Old
Man Bob, and charged him two or three prices for everything he bought.
He'd walk into Tom Baker's store with his saddle-bags on his arm and
holler out, 'Well, what you got to-day? Trot out your silks and your
satins, and remember that the best ain't good enough for my little
gal.'

"When Annie was twelve years old he took her off to Bardstown to git
her education. When he come to say good-bye to her, he cried and she
cried, and it ended with him settin' down and stayin' three weeks in
Bardstown, waitin' for Annie to git over her homesickness. Folks never
did git through plaguin' him about goin' off to boardin' school, and
as soon as Sam Crawford seen him he says, 'Well, Uncle Bob, when do
you reckon you'll git your diploma?'

"I never shall forgit the first time Annie come home to spend her
Christmas. The neighbors didn't have any peace o' their lives for Old
Man Bob tellin' 'em how Annie had growed, and how there wasn't a gal