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The door leading to the hall was half open. The house was full of blue-gray shadows, and had a drowsy hush upon it, a pleasanter hush than it used to know. One heard the rushing wind outside, and above it Mary Magdalen singing one of her interminable "speretuals." A slinking shadow stole through the hall, a wary yellow head appeared in the door, and Beautiful Dog sneaked into the room.
And then, to add to her joy, had come this last, astonishing news: "dat gal" was going to divorce Mist' Peter! That incomprehensible marriage would be done away with, that grim, red-headed dragoness would go out of their lives! Emma's speretuals took a more hopeful trend; and Peter whistled while he worked.
Hemingway grew more and more perturbed, though she wasn't so troubled about it as Emma Campbell was. Emma's terror of "dat gal" had grown with the years. Neither of them ventured to question Peter, but Emma Campbell began to have frequent spells of "wrastlin' wid de sperit," and her long, lugubrious "speretuals" were dismal enough to set one's teeth on edge.
The feel of Satan's soft, warm body comforted her inexpressibly. He, at least, was real in a shifting universe. She began to rock herself, slowly, rhythmically, back and forth. Then the New York negroes heard a shrill, sweet, wailing voice upraised in one of those speretuals in which Africa concentrates her ages of anguish into a half-articulate cry.
While she worked she sang endless "speretuals," in a high, sweet voice that swooped bird-like up and down. "I wants tuh climb up Ja-cob's la-ad-dah, Ja-cob's la-ad-dah, Jacob's la-ad-dah, I wants tuh climb up Ja-cob's la-ad-dah, But I cain't Not un-tell I makes my peace wid de La-a-wd, En I praise Him de La-a-wd! I 'll praise Him tell I di-e, I 'll praise Him tell I die!
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