The Fiddler's Secret

by Lois Walfrid Johnson

  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 an
d 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?”

  CHAPTER 21

  Trapped!

  Shadow Man,” Caleb said as he wrote on the big blackboard from Pa’s cabin. “Mr. Trouble. The pawnbroker.”

  Under the names Caleb wrote quickly for Peter, “What do we know about the thief who stole the fiddle?”

  “The man in the music store said he has a red mark on his neck,” Libby said.

  “The oxcart driver thought the thief didn’t really want to sell the violin,” Caleb added.

  “The first time we came to St. Paul, there were three men on the Christina we didn’t trust,” Libby said. “And three men stole the furs.”

  In a way that reminded Libby of Caleb, Peter brushed the blond hair out of his eyes. “I think the man who stole the violin finds whatever people he needs to help him.”

  “What do you mean?” Caleb signed.

  “The thief is someone smart,” Peter explained. “Sometimes he works on his own, like when he stole the violin. If he needs more men for something like stealing furs, he finds them.”

  Caleb clapped Peter on the back. “You’ve got it!” he wrote. “And we can be sure of one thing. The pawnbroker wanted to collect the reward on Jordan. More than likely, he talked to Riggs.”

  “So we’ve got either one thief or three.” The idea frightened Libby. “If that’s true, the thieves want to get money in whatever way they can.”

  Libby looked at Caleb. “You gave my drawing of Mr. Trouble to the police. They said he fits the description of a well-known crook—someone hiding from the law. Do you think Mr. Trouble is the leader in all this?”

  Caleb shrugged. “When they need a tough guy, he might do the mean stuff.”

  “But who’s the brains?” Libby asked. “The one who plans everything? Could it be Shadow Man?”

  Caleb shrugged. “We’re missing something important. Something so simple that it’s right in front of us.”

  “We need to start over,” Libby said as they finished talking.

  During the night, she decided what to do. For Libby, starting over meant going back to the first place they looked. But she didn’t want anyone else along. Already she was thinking about Christmas. If she was careful with the small amount of money she had, she could make drawings for everyone. On her way to the pawnshop she would buy art supplies.

  The next morning Libby told the others she was going into town. When Caleb offered to go with her, she shook her head. Instead, she agreed to meet everyone at Annika’s for a late afternoon meal.

  When Libby was ready to leave, Samson followed her down to the gangplank. Libby commanded, “Stay!”

  Samson dropped to his haunches. As he tipped his head and whined, Libby remembered Annika’s warning about taking the dog along. Instead, Libby pushed the thought away. Samson is such a pest. Besides, I won’t be out after dark.

  After shutting the dog in, Libby set out. All the way into St. Paul, she thought about the stolen violin.

  Libby soon found a general store that sold food and clothing, tools, and art supplies. The walls of the store were lined with shelves, but many of them were empty.

  As Libby explained what she wanted, the storekeeper shook his head. “I’m sorry. I ordered that kind of paper and those pencils, but the river closed so early that we didn’t get our shipment.”

  Disappointed, Libby turned away, but the man called after her. “Have you tried using charcoal crayons? We have some left.”

  He held up what looked like a small black stick, then drew on a piece of paper. “See the heavy line it makes? Or you can do something soft and light.”

  Libby hadn’t used charcoal, but now she had no choice but to learn. As the storekeeper wrapped her package, she saw Oliver White enter the general store.

  Turning quickly, Libby stood with her back to the man. She didn’t want to talk with him about Annika and hoped he wouldn’t see her.

  Two days after finding the teacher, Libby had asked her about Mr. White.

  “When I moved to Swede Hollow, I didn’t tell him where I went,” Annika had explained.

  “He didn’t find you? You never bumped into him on the street?”

  Annika shook her head and smiled but said no more.

  The moment Libby’s package was ready, she hurried out of the store. By now it was the middle of the afternoon, and Libby headed for the pawnshop. When she reached it, she opened the door slowly so the jangling bell didn’t ring.

  The large room looked much the same as in August, except for one thing. Hard times had come, and the well-protected cases were filled to overflowing.

  On the right side of the dimly lit room, two doors stood partway open. Through one doorway Libby saw a hall that led to the back of the building. From there she heard the voices of two men.

  Libby stepped closer to the other door. Pushing it open, she discovered a small closet with shelves from floor to ceiling. As her eyes grew used to the dim light, she saw a man’s gold watch and a costly necklace. Then Libby found it. A violin case!

  Her heart pounding, she lifted the case into the light of the large room. Setting the case on a counter, she lifted the cover, picked up the violin, and turned it over.

  In that instant the sound of voices in the back room changed. One of the men had moved closer.

  In one swift movement, Libby put the violin back in its case and closed the cover. Without a sound, she set the violin on the closet shelf. Pulling the closet door partway shut, she turned back into the larger room. When a man entered the room, she was looking up at a wall filled with musical instruments.

  “I didn’t hear you come in,” the man said. “Have you been here long?”

  Libby drew a deep breath and turned to face him. Before her stood the short, thin pawnbroker with a collar so high that it seemed he had no neck. Without a doubt he was the man who had threatened Jordan on the Christina.

  What if he remembers me? Libby thought, her h
eart pounding again.

  She tried to speak calmly. “I’m looking for a violin for someone who plays well. Are these for sale?”

  The man showed her three violins. Each time Libby took one, she looked it over and tried to play a note or two. Tucking the chin rest in place, she drew the bow across the strings. The screech sent shivers up her arm.

  Libby forced herself to smile. “Good thing it’s not for me.” Finally she said, “I’ll talk to my father. If he’s able to come today, how long are you open?”

  When Libby turned toward the door, she nearly crashed into a tall man coming in. In the dim light of the pawnshop, his hat shadowed his face. Dressed for the cold, he wore a long black coat.

  Then Libby realized who he was. Mr. Oliver White III! Inwardly she groaned. I haven’t seen him since August. Now two times in one day!

  A startled look crossed his face. His hand went to the brim of his hat as though to lift it. “Miss Norstad,” he said. “I didn’t realize you were in town.”

  “Mr. White,” she answered just as politely. After avoiding him earlier, Libby had no choice but to talk with him now. “Are you living in St. Paul?”

  The tall young man smiled. “I’m here for the winter. I’ve always been grateful to your father for introducing Miss Berg to me.”

  And I’ve always wished he hadn’t, Libby thought. Somehow you always show up at the wrong time.

  “Miss Berg is a splendid young woman.” Mr. White sounded as if he had been seeing her every day.

  “I’m sure she’s a very good teacher,” Libby said. Her thoughts tumbled on. And I’m sure you want to know where Annika is. Well, I’m not going to be the one who tells you!

  “Are you finding what you need?” he asked.

  Libby swallowed hard. “Yes, Mr. White,” she said softly. “I found everything I need.”

  Outdoors once more, Libby took the street that ran along the side of the building. Sunshine had turned the snow to slush, and she walked quickly. She had almost reached the next corner when she turned around.

  From there she could see the back wall of the pawnshop. Bars covered a door and two windows. A man stood at one of the windows, watching her.