kept turnin' out boys, he got crazier and crazier for a gyirl. Annie wasn't born till he was past sixty, and he like to 'a' lost his senses with joy. It was harvestin' time, and he jest stopped work and set on his front porch, and every time anybody passed by he'd holler, 'Well; neighbor, it's a gal this time!' If I'd 'a' been in Ann 'Liza's place, I'd 'a' gagged him. But la! she thought everything he did 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.