Father will come to you soo-oon!"

He seemed not to care, but yawned in his hand as he put his prize book
under his arm through one of the holes in his gown, and in two minutes
was back in his room, and in another five was fast asleep.

It was the general opinion that William Rufus Holly, fat, yellow-haired,
and twenty-four years old, was doomed to failure in life, in spite of
the fact that he had a little income of a thousand dollars a year, and
had made a century in an important game of cricket. Great, therefore,
was the surprise of the college, and afterward of the Province, when, at
the farewell dinner of the graduates, Sleeping Beauty announced, between
his little open-eyed naps, that he was going Far North as a missionary.

At first it was thought he was joking, but when at last, in his calm and
dreamy look, they saw he meant what he said, they rose and carried him
round the room on a chair, making impromptu songs as they travelled.
They toasted Billy Rufus again and again, some of them laughing till
they cried at the thought of Averdoopoy going to the Arctic regions. But
an uneasy seriousness fell upon these "beautiful, bountiful, brilliant
boys," as Holly called them later, when in a simple, honest, but
indolent speech he said he had applied for ordination.

Six months later William Rufus Holly, a deacon in holy orders, journeyed
to Athabasca in the Far North. On his long journey there was plenty of
time to think. He was embarked on a career which must for ever keep him
in the wilds; for very seldom indeed does a missionary of the North ever
return to the crowded cities or take a permanent part in civilised life.

What the loneliness of it would be he began to feel, as for hours and
hours he saw no human being on the plains; in the thrilling stillness
of the night; in fierce storms in the woods, when his half-breed guides
bent their heads to meet the wind and rain, and did not speak for hours;
in the long, adventurous journey on the river by day, in the cry of the
plaintive loon at night; in the scant food for every meal. Yet what the
pleasure would be he felt in the joyous air, the exquisite sunshine, the
flocks of wild-fowl flying North, honking on their course; in the song
of the half-breeds as they ran the rapids. Of course, he did not
think these things quite as they are written here--all at once and all
together; but in little pieces from time to time, feeling them rather
than saying them to himsel