Page:Cornelia Meigs-The Pirate of Jasper Peak.djvu/37

 blue, that must surely have come from  Sweden, or have been made by the patient labor  of Ingmarsson's great rough hands. In the center of the table was another bit of carving, a really beautiful wooden bowl with a raised wreath  of water lilies fashioned about its edge. It was full of moss and gay red bunches of partridge  berries. The Ingmarsson child saw Hugh’s eyes resting upon it and, with a mighty effort, managed to speak.

“My Uncle Oscar, he made it,” the youngster said in his little Swedish voice; “he brought  it to us with the berries in it the last time he came  from the mountain.”

It was his only attempt at conversation and, although bravely undertaken, lapsed immediately  into frightened silence.

Linda, entering just then, finally broke the quiet of Hugh’s reflections.

“Supper will soon be ready,” she said. "Carl, take the visitor upstairs and show him where to  put his things.”

The small guide went obediently before Hugh,