Nothing fills an old grandfather's heart with more joy than a happy romp with adorable little grandchildren.

Variety is the zest of life with them, so I quickly came up with a new game, They shall not pass!

Stationing myself midway on the stairs between two floors of our house, I dared them to do their best to get by me. The challenge was accepted immediately

and I was assaulted one after another by a gaggle of giggling little girls attempting to bypass a doting, exhilarated, irrepressibly laughing old ex-prof.

No success, until a darling precious little four-year-old located her miniature football

and passed it high over my head. What could I do, faced with such inventive ingenuity

and rhetorical moxie: "Catch it, Granny!"* on the part of such a tiny sweet precocious tot? |:Move aside and give a gentle pat to each of the five as they scrambled victoriously past! :|

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*Inexplicably she always called me that.