SEVENTY years ago a group of children gathered round a wise and kindly Scotchwoman, and ever, as one tale ended, they shouted, “Tell on, Bell, tell on.”
Some of the stories she told are forgotten, and it is many days since the fortunes she read were proved true or false, but other little children re-echo the old request, and James Chalmers knew well how to answer it when he wrote for us of Kone and of Aveo, of the wild waves of the Pacific, and of the wilder men on its islands.
His life’s adventure here is over. He will not come back to us nor tell us one tale more. But who shall say that we may not reach him one day, greet him with the old words, “Tell on, tell on,” and listen, rapt and eager, to stories of brave deeds and strange voyages in that new world in which he lives?