From where do the characters outside young Scrooge's window come? What is present-day Scrooge's reaction to them?

In Stave
Two, the Ghost of Christmas Past transports Scrooge to the countryside landscape of his youth,
where children rejoice, laugh, and play during the Christmas holiday. The Spirit then leads
Scrooge to his former schoolhouse, which is described as being melancholy and bare. Scrooge's
former adolescent self is the only person in the classroom and Scrooge begins to weep at the
depressing memory. As the young Scrooge reads to himself, the Spirit touches older Scrooge's arm
and the image of a man in foreign garments appears outside the window. Scrooge immediately
recognizes the man as Ali Baba and also sees Valentine alongside his wild brother
Orson.

The older Scrooge is filled with excitement and
joy at seeing the unique characters and also witnesses Robin Crusoe's parrot, Friday, outside of
the window. The images the older Scrooge sees are figments of his young imagination, which are
recognizable fictional characters in the stories he used to read while he was by himself at the
schoolhouse. Ali Baba is a famous character from the novel Arabian Nights
while Valentine and Orson are twin brothers from a story written by Nancy Ekholm Burkert. The
parrot Friday is also a character in Daniel Defoe's classic adventure story, Robinson
Crusoe. As a young boy, the fictional characters Scrooge was reading would come to
life in his imagination, which what the older Scrooge is excited to witness.

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