His hips were thin; and the legs, lean and hairy, were
crooked and stringy-muscled. In fact, my father's legs
were more like arms. They were twisted and gnarly, and
with scarcely the semblance of the full meaty calf such
as graces your leg and mine. I remember he could not
walk on the flat of his foot. This was because it was
a prehensile foot, more like a hand than a foot. The
great toe, instead of being in line with the other
toes, opposed them, like a thumb, and its opposition to
the other toes was what enabled him to get a grip with
his foot. This was why he could not walk on the flat
of his foot.
But his appearance was no more unusual than the manner
of his coming, there to my mother and me as we perched
above the angry wild pigs. He came through the trees,
leaping from limb to limb and from tree to tree; and he
came swiftly. I can see him now, in my wake-a-day
life, as I write this, swinging along through the
trees, a four-handed, hairy creature, howling with
rage, pausing now and again to beat his chest with his
clenched fist, leaping ten-and-fifteen-foot gaps,
catching a branch with one hand and swinging on across
another gap to catch with his other hand and go on,
never hesitating, never at a loss as to how to proceed
on his arboreal way.
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