Page:Cornelia Meigs-The Pirate of Jasper Peak.djvu/33

 of kindliness and sympathy began to pour in upon him. Long before the small, unofficial towncrier had come to the last house, the first  sunburned face had appeared in Linda Ingmarsson’s doorway, and the first heavy Swedish voice  had asked for “that boy that vas Edmonds  friendt.” The shyness and reserve that usually  stood firm between these people and any stranger,  melted away at the sight of some one who was in  trouble. It was, at last, by the very greatness of their proffered kindness that Hugh began to realize how serious his trouble was.

It was only the last visitor who gave him the actual facts of the affair, Nels Larson, Senior, a  little elderly Swede with a wrinkled skin and  puckered eyes that were mere pin-pricks of blue. He chanced to be left alone with Hugh and proved so shy and slow of speech that he was  able to answer direct questions and make the  truth clear without complicating it with opinions  of his own. He said that the two Edmonds boys had gone hunting, and expected, so far as any one  knew, to be gone but a day, that they had