There, indeed, was the erstwhile Widow Paarlenberg on her porch, rocking. A pleasant place to be in mid-afternoon of a hot September day. She stared at the creaking farm wagon, vegetable laden; at the boy perched on the high seat; at the sallow shabby woman who was charioteer for the whole crazy outfit. Mrs. Klaas Pool’s pink face creased in a smile. She sat forward in her chair and ceased to rock. “Where you going this hot day, Mis’ DeJong?” Selina sat up very straight. “To Bagdad, Mrs. Pool.” “To—Where’s that? What for?” “To sell my jewels, Mrs. Pool. And to see Aladdin, and Harun-al-Rashid and Ali Baba. And the Forty Thieves.” Mrs. Pool had left her rocker and had come down the steps. The wagon creaked on past her gate. She took a step or two down the path, and called after them. “I never heard of it. Bag—How do you get there?” Over her shoulder Selina called out from the wagon seat. “You just go until you come to a closed door. And you say ‘Open Sesame!’ and there you are.” Bewilderment shadowed Mrs. Pool’s placid face. As the wagon lurched on down the road it was Selina who was smiling and Mrs. Pool who was serious. The boy, round eyed, was looking up at his mother. “That’s out of _Arabian Nights_, what you said. Why did you say that?” Suddenly excitement tinged his voice. “That’s out of the book. Isn’t it? Isn’t it! We’re not really——” She was a little contrite, but not very. “Well, not really, perhaps. But ’most any place is Bagdad if you don’t know what will happen in it. And this is an adventure, isn’t it, that we’re going on? How can you tell! All kind of things can happen. All kinds of people. People in disguise in the Haymarket. Caliphs, and princes, and slaves, and thieves, and good fairies, and witches.” “In the Haymarket! That Pop went to all the time! That is just dumb talk.” Within Selina something cried out, “Don’t say that, Sobig! Don’t say that!” On down the road. Here a head at a front room window. There a woman’s calicoed figure standing in the doorway. Mrs. Vander Sijde on the porch, fanning her flushed face with her apron; Cornelia Snip in the yard pretending to tie up the drooping stalks of the golden-glow and eyeing the approaching team with the avid gossip’s gaze. To these Selina waved, bowed, called. “How d’you do, Mrs. Vander Sijde!” A prim reply to this salutation. Disapproval writ large on the farm-wife’s flushed face. “Hello, Cornelia!” A pretended start, notable for its bad acting. “Oh, is it you, Mrs. DeJong! Sun’s in my eyes. I couldn’t think it was you like that.” Women’s eyes, hostile, cold, peering.