th are housed in this Mission,
learning how to play the white man's game--jolly and clean little bodies
they are. It looks like Christmas time. Parcels are being done up, there
is much whispering and running to and fro, and the sparkling of black
eyes. Would you like to see the letters that _The Teaser, The Twin,
Johnny Little Hunter_, and _Mary Blue Quill_ are sending out to their
parents? For the most part the missives consist of cakes of pink scented
soap tightly wrapped round with cotton cloth, on which the teachers are
writing in ink the syllabic characters that stand for each father's and
mother's name. The soap has been bought with the children's pennies
earned by quill-work and wood-carving done in the long winter nights.
The parcels will be passed from one trapper's jerkin to another, and
when, months afterwards, they reach their destination in far tepee or
lodge of the deerskin, _Mrs. Woman-of-the-Bright-Foam_ and _Mr.
Kee-noo-shay-o_, or _The Fish_, will know their boys and girls "still
remember."

One of the Hay River teachers is married to a Chicagoan who started ten
years ago for the Klondike, knew when he had found pure gold, ceased his
quest here, and lived happily ever after. Their children are the most
fascinating little people we have seen for many months. Life is quaint
at the Hay River Mission. The impression we carry away is of earnest and
sweet-hearted women bringing mother-love to the waifs of the wilderness,
letting their light shine where few there are to see it. We discover
the moccasin-flower in bloom, see old Indian women bringing in
evergreen boughs for their summer bedding--a delightful Ostermoor
mattress of their own devising. Dogs cultivate potatoes at Hay River in
summer, and in the winter they haul hay. The hay causes our enquiry, and
we learn that this Mission boasts one old ox, deposited here no doubt by
some glacial drift of the long ago. And thereby hangs a tale. Charlie,
an attache of the school-force, drove this old ox afield day by day. As
man and beast returned wearily in the evening, the teachers asked,
"Well, what happened to-day, Charlie?" "Bill balked," was the laconic
reply. Tuesday's question would bring the same response, "Bill balked."
And "Bill balked," on Wednesday. Thursday it is--"Bill didn't balk"; and
so the days divided themselves into days of blueness and red-letter
days.

[Illustration: Dogs Cultivating Potatoes]

The mean July temperature at Hay River is 60