"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 all 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.'