We ran around
the large centre-table, and made this gambol most tempestuously merry.
If anything had been left upon the table before we began, it was
removed with rapidity before we finished. There was a distinct
understanding that our blindfolded father must not be permitted to
touch any of us, or else we should be reduced forthwith to our
original dust. The pulsing grasp of his great hands and heavy
fingers, soft and springing in their manipulation of one's shoulders
as the touch of a wild thing, was amusingly harmless, considering the
howls with which his onslaught was evaded as long as our flying legs
were loyal to us. My father's gentle laughter and happy-looking lips
were a revelation during these bouts. I remember with what awe I once
tied the blinding handkerchief round his head, feeling the fine
crispness of his silky hair, full of electricity, as some people's is
only on frosty days; yet without any of that crinkly resistance of
most hair that is full of energy. But there were times when I used to
stand at a distance and gaze at his peaceful aspect, and wonder if he
would ever open the floodgates of fun in a game of romp on any rainy
Sunday of the future. If a traveler caught the Sphinx humming to
herself, would he not be inclined to sit down and watch her till she
did it again?
I have referred to his large hand. I shall never see a more reassuring
one than his. It was broad, generous, supple. It had the little
depressions and the smoothness to be noticed in the hands of truest
charity; yet it had the ample outlines of the vigorously imaginative
temperament, so different from the hard plumpness of coarseness or
brutality.
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