Halla_lu_!"

And these words sound queer to you as you read them, perhaps, but they
did not sound queer when Mammy Delphy was singing them. I don't believe
that a song out of heaven could be sweeter than this and other songs
like it that dear old Mammy sings, with her turbaned head bobbing up
and down and her foot softly keeping time to the melody. There is a sort
of plaintive--what shall I call it?--_twist_ in her voice that makes you
choke up about the throat, if you are a boy, and sob right out if you
are a girl. And it makes you, somehow, remember, in hearing it, all the
sweet, sad little stories that your mother has told you about your
little baby sister who died before you were born; or, if you have stood
in a darkened room, holding fast to some tender and loving hand, and
looked at a face that was dear to you lying upon its coffin pillow, you
think of that strange and sad time. And with these thoughts come, as you
listen, other thoughts of flying angels and shining crowns, and
wide-opened gates of pearl. A sweetness mixed with pain--that is, the
feeling which Mammy Delphy's singing brings to you, though you could not
describe it, perhaps, if you tried--at least that's the feeling it
brings to me.

"I'll take my shoes from off'n my feet,
And walk into de golden street,
Glory, Halla_lu_!"

sang Mammy. Sam and Jim and Joe came filing in. They had been--well,
where _hadn't_ they been! They had been down to the Bayou, which ran a
good quarter of a mile back of the place, "fishin for cat," and
chunking at an unwary rabbit that had taken refuge in a hollow tree;
they had been out in the field, cutting open two or three half-grown
watermelons to see if they were ripe; they had been across the prairie
to a _mott_ of sweet-gum trees, where they had stuck up the cuffs and
bosoms of their shirts with gum and torn their trousers in climbing a
persimmon tree to peep into a bird's-nest. And they were rushing across
the yard in chase of a horned-frog when they caught sight of Mammy
Delphy under the kitchen shed.

"Let's go and get Mammy Delphy to give us some meat and go a
crawfishin', boys," suggested Sam.

"And I'm hungry, for one," added Joe.

Accordingly they filed in, as I said, and stood for a moment listening
to Mammy Delphy's song.

"Give us somethin' to eat, Mammy, please," said Jim.

"An' some craw-fish bait and a piece of string," put in the other two in
a breath.

"I