Page 59 - Devil's Arithmetic by Jane Yolen

"What is Kansas?" Rachel asked.
Just then Gitl dropped back and listened to them.
Hannah was afraid she would interrupt them or make
her ride in the wagon. But all Gitl said was "Kansas,
it is in America. Near New Rochelle." Then she walked
away, laughing.
As they wound on through the forest, Hannah guessed
everybody from the shtetl was there. The littlest chil-
dren and some of the older women rode in the open
wagons, but everyone else walked. Sunlight filtered
through the canopy of large trees, spotlighting the for-
est. It was even more magical than the forest in Oz,
Hannah thought, When she stopped for a moment to
take it all in, the girls complained.
"Go on, go on," Shifre said. "What happened next?"
Putting her arm around Hannah's waist, Rachel smiled.
"Let her be. She is only catching her breath."
"You are the one who has trouble catching her breath,"
said Yente the Cossack. She. wrinkled her long nose.
"But Chaya has plenty of breath. Shifre is right. What
happened next to this Dorothy Gale?"

Hannah was in the middle of a muddled version of
Hansel and Gretel, having temporarily run out of movies
and books and fallen back on the nursery tales she told
Aaron or the Brodie twins, when her attention was
arrested by a high, thin, musical wail. She stopped in
mid-sentence.
The others heard it at the same time and Yente clapped
her hands.
"The klezmer!" she cried but. "We're almost there:"

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