When the boat landed at Winona, the soldiers gave some money to one of the hotel porters, and told him to give the child something to eat, and send him out into the country where there were Norwegian people. But as soon as Peter had eaten the dinner they gave him at the hotel, he slipped away, and went back to the river. He expected to find his friends, the soldiers, waiting for him; but the boat had gone. Peter was now in a strange city, without friends. Not without friends, either, for his sisters were in this same city. But he did not think any more of getting to his mother or his sisters. He was only thinking of the soldiers who had been so kind to him.
When the next boat came down the river, Peter Petersen, in his little blue uniform, marched aboard. He thought he might overtake the soldiers, but the boatmen put him ashore again. He stood gazing after the boat, not knowing what to do or where to go.
There stood on the bank that day a Norwegian. He was a guest at the Norwegian hotel in the town. He heard Peter say something in his own language, and he thought the boy must be a son of the man who kept the hotel. So he said to him in Norwegian, "Let's go home."
It had been a long time since Peter had heard his own language spoken. Nobody had said anything to him about home since he was taken away from his father's cabin by the Indians. The words sounded sweet to him. He followed the strange man. He did not know where he was going, except that it was to some place called home. When he got to the hotel, he went in and sat down. He did not know what else to do.
Presently the landlady came in. Seeing a strange little boy in army blue, she said, "Whose child are you?"
Peter did not know whose child he was. Since the soldiers left him, he didn't seem to be anybody's child. As he did not answer, the landlady spoke to him rather sharply.
"What do you want here, little boy?" she said.
"A drink of water," said Peter.
A little boy nearly always wants a drink of water.
"Go through into the kitchen there, and get a drink," said the landlady.