CHAPTER 20 CHAPTER 20 
During the night it snowed. In the morning, Caleb decided that Peter wasn’t well enough to walk all the way to Swede Hollow. As Libby and Caleb set out, she looked back and saw the tracks they had made up the steep hill next to the backwaters. The tall white steamboat looked like an ice palace surrounded by snow.
On the way there, Caleb told Libby more about Swede Hollow. “It’s a ravine—a narrow place between steep bluffs. Fur traders lived in the ravine for a while. When they moved on, Swedish immigrants moved in. They started fixing up the houses—”
Caleb corrected himself. “Shacks, the men at the newspaper called them. People stay in the shacks by paying the city five dollars a month for taxes. It’s a hidden-away part of St. Paul. If Annika is there, it’s no wonder your pa can’t find her.”
Before long they came to the edge of the ravine. Looking down, Caleb whistled. “It’s seventy feet deep!”
The sides of the ravine were nearly straight up and down. At the bottom of the valley was a swiftly moving stream that Caleb called Phalen Creek. Even from where Libby stood, she heard the water rippling over the stones.
Stilts supported the front side of each house, while the back side was built into the bluff. The houses were small and hastily put up, but to Libby the size didn’t matter. There was something about them that she liked.
What is it? she wondered, puzzled by what she felt.
In Chicago she had lived with Aunt Vi in a mansion, but Libby couldn’t call these buildings shacks. Many of the houses showed repair. More than once a front porch or a room had been added. In the steep sides of the ravine, people had set large wooden tubs for flowers to grow in the summer.
Libby struggled to put what she was feeling into words. Then she knew what it was. A sense of caring. They’ve taken what they have and made the best of it.
A new dusting of snow lay over the tucked-away village, making everything clean. As though she could see inside the small houses, Libby imagined family and friends meeting over a cup of coffee. Gathering around a wood stove to talk in the language they knew. Living in a valley that reminded them of the country they left.
If Annika is here, she’s made a home.
At an open spot between trees, Caleb crouched low. “I’ll show you the quickest way down,” he said. On the steep side of the ravine, his boots slid forward. Stretching out his arms, he swooped downward. A trail of snow fanned out behind him.
A short distance from the creek, he leaned over and sprawled in a bank of snow. “C’mon! It’s great!” he called.
Libby gulped, just looking at Caleb far below.
“You can do it!” he shouted. “But don’t hit a tree! Roll on your side if you need to stop!”
The moment Libby crouched down, she felt herself slide forward. With her slippery shoes, it worked! Then she looked to the bottom of the ravine and panicked, lost her balance, and tumbled into the snow. When she picked herself up, she crouched low again.
This time she dragged her hands behind her, ready to stop if needed. Faster and faster she went, swooping down the hill. Full of laughter, she landed in the soft snow at the bottom.
Libby and Caleb began their search by knocking on the nearest door to ask for Annika Berg. On their first try, a woman said, “Yah, sure, she teaches my children to read and write. She teaches them to love America.”
The woman pointed to a house farther down the hollow. When Caleb knocked there, another woman opened the door. “Yah, yah, the teacher lives here. But she is gone now. Come back in an hour or two.”
“We found her!” Libby exclaimed. “I can’t believe it!” After all their searching, it seemed too good to be true.
While they waited, she and Caleb walked through the hollow. Soon they came to a wider path leading up and out of the ravine. As Libby looked ahead, she saw a young woman coming toward her. In the morning sunlight her black hair shone. The cold air brought out the color of her cheeks.
Libby broke into a run. “Annika!” she called. “We found you!”
In the middle of the path the teacher stopped. Then she, too, started running. As they met halfway, Annika threw her arms around Libby in a big hug.
When Annika stepped back, she cupped Libby’s face in her hands. “Oh, Libby,” she said, beginning to cry. “I didn’t know if I’d ever see you again.”
Now it was Libby who hugged her. When Annika finally stopped weeping, she asked one question. “Your pa?”
Libby grinned. “This is the fifth day he’s climbed every hill in St. Paul looking for you.”
She watched the teacher’s face. “Annika, did you really mean to say goodbye to us? Goodbye forever?”
The teacher’s deep blue eyes met Libby’s. “I was very angry when I said that. Angry with your aunt Vi. My pride got in the way.”
“Pa wasn’t gone from the Christina the way Auntie said. We didn’t find out about the note you gave her till we were far down the river. What she told you isn’t true.”
A red flush crept into Annika’s cheeks. “About being second best?”
Libby nodded. “Pa doesn’t want anyone to feel second best. Especially the woman he loves.”
Startled, Annika blinked. Once again tears welled up in her eyes. She tried to brush them away.
“Pa would have telegraphed you from Galena,” Libby said. “But the telegraph hasn’t reached St. Paul. So he searched out a steamboat captain and sent a letter.”
Tears streamed down Annika’s cheeks. “I never received it. If you couldn’t find me, the captain probably couldn’t find me either.”
As she wiped her cheeks, Annika drew a deep breath. Suddenly she remembered Caleb. When she tried to shake his hand, he hugged her instead. Then Annika led them to the house where she stayed. The first thing she did was cancel classes for the day.
Off to one side of the small house, a room had been added. Annika showed it to them. “See how well the Lord provided when my teaching position fell through?”
“What happened?” Libby asked.
“The panic,” Annika began. “Everything changed. Hundreds of people left St. Paul. Banks closed. The little money there was had no value. If people had something to sell, they wanted gold. Harriet might have been able to help me, but she left soon after you did.”
“Didn’t you wonder if you had heard God wrong?” Libby asked. “About staying in St. Paul, I mean?”
Annika smiled. “It certainly crossed my mind. But when I asked for help, God led me here.”
Annika’s outstretched hand took in the small room. “The people of the hollow who had jobs took up a collection to buy lumber. The men who didn’t have work built this room. When I said, ‘It is too much, too much,’ they told me, ‘It is too much that you teach our children.’”
“Can you come with us for the day?” Libby asked. “We don’t know how to find Pa. But if we go to the Christina, you’ll be there when he comes home.”
At the Christina Libby surprised Peter with the news. “Look who we found!” Together with Gran, they gathered around the wood stove to wait for Pa.
Several times that day, Libby went up to the hurricane deck to look toward St. Paul. Against the setting sun, she finally saw Pa in the distance. He walked with dragging steps and slumped shoulders.
Libby raced down to the Christina’s winter room to find Annika. “Pa’s coming!”
Annika snatched up her coat and hurried from the room. Down the stairs to the main deck she raced, then across the gangplank.
As Annika started up the hill, Pa suddenly stopped. Then he straightened for a better look. The next instant he started running.
Pa and Annika met on the side of the hill, and his arms went around her. As he bowed his head, his shoulders shook, and Libby knew he was weeping.
Then Libby remembered what Pa and Caleb had told her. Though it was one of the hardest things she had ever done, Libby turned around. She even walked away to give Pa and Annika time alone.
When at last they came inside, Libby had straightened up the Christina’s winter room. Caleb had made it cozy with wood heat. Gran had coffee and supper ready, and Peter held Wellington in his arms.
As they ate supper together, Annika sat next to Pa. “Day after day I walked to the Lower Landing and watched for the Christina,” she told him. “But time passed, and you didn’t come. Then the river froze—” Annika stopped, unable to go on.
“Did you think I had forgotten you?”
Annika shook her head. “I knew something was wrong. I feared the worst.” A smile lit her face. “Thank you for coming back.”
Pa put his hand over hers. “Thank you for waiting for me.”
Then Pa drew back. “You say you’re living in Swede Hollow? Will those Swedes allow a Norwegian to court you?”
“Not if you tell them.” Annika’s eyes had that look of mischief again. Then she smiled. “Well, maybe they would understand since it’s you.”
From that moment on, Pa showed Annika that he took their courtship seriously. Often he and Annika disappeared for sleigh rides and skating on the Mississippi River. In spite of her best attempts to behave and not listen in, Libby sometimes heard what they said. Once, it was about Peter.
“You adopted him?” Annika asked.
“I wanted to talk with you first,” Pa said. “I didn’t know how you felt, even about me. I believed you would want Peter to be part of our family. But I knew that even if you didn’t—even if it became a reason why you wouldn’t want to marry me—I still wanted to adopt Peter for his sake.”
Annika looked into Pa’s eyes. “Nathaniel, I love you for yourself. I love you for your caring heart. Often I’ve wondered, ‘How will I know if I’ve found a man who will be a good father?’ Seeing you with Libby and Peter, I know exactly the kind of father you are.”
Annika blinked away her tears. “It would be my honor to be Libby’s mother and Peter’s too.”
That night they made plans for Thanksgiving Day. “It’s on December tenth this year,” Annika reminded them.
“Let’s invite Jordan’s family,” Caleb said.
Libby joined in. “And the fiddler too. He doesn’t have a family here.”
“Could we have our Thanksgiving on the Christina?” Annika asked Pa.
And so it was decided. On Thanksgiving morning, Micah Parker would bring his family from St. Anthony in a sleigh. Jordan would come the day before, so he could spend extra time with Caleb.
During the days that followed, Libby, Caleb, and Peter went back to work on finding the fiddler’s violin.
When Annika asked about their search, she said, “Libby, you shouldn’t walk about the streets of St. Paul alone. Remember the man who crept into your room? How he looked for the picture you drew? Remember the men who stole furs from the warehouse?”
Libby nodded. Those furs had never been found. With Annika’s reminder, Libby’s fear returned.
“You don’t know who the men are, but they know you,” Annika warned.
“They’ve probably left St. Paul by now.” Libby tried to pretend that the men didn’t scare her.
“But we don’t know,” Annika said. “We just don’t know. If you go somewhere alone, why don’t you take Samson along?”