That Forgetful Shore Read Online Free PDF

and children, worries and cares.
    â€œI allow ’tis worth a try,” Trif says now. “But talk to him first. If you don’t tell him why you’re doing it, he won’t know what to think.”
    The children are home for their dinner, when Uncle Albert comes down off the roof and joins them. After they go back, Trif puts Betty down for a nap and picks up her sewing: Uncle Albert’s credit from the summer’s fishing allowed for several yards of blue and white gingham that she is making into dresses for the little girls and herself. At half-past three she tells Aunt Rachel she is going to walk up the school to see the children home. Her thought is that she will walk along with them, to see if those bigger boys are giving Will any trouble.
    She arrives just as the boys and girls burst from the school door, hollering and leaping with the joy of freedom. Mr. Bishop leans against the doorframe, looking weary. She wonders how all that energy, all those children, can be contained in that single room, how he can keep them all in line for so many hours.
    He smiles when he sees her, and after a word to Ruth and Will to wait for her, Triffie goes up to him. “You’ve had a long day, sir,” she says.
    â€œA long day and a hard one, Triffie. I have no such scholars as you and Kit this year. Sadie and Millicent are the two oldest, and Millicent is a good student, but neither of them is the kind of help you and Kit were with the little ones. Only now you’re both gone, I see how much I relied on you. I sometimes wonder you got any learning done at all yourselves, with all the time you spent hearing the children’s lessons.”
    â€œAh well, all that practice will stand Kit in good stead now, when she finishes up her learning and starts to teach.”
    â€œIndeed, indeed. What do you hear from her?”
    She likes his careful, teacherly speech, his accent tugging at the edges of his voice but most of it smoothed away, made proper, dressed up with words like Indeed, indeed . She feels her own language adjust itself to match his, becoming tidier and more formal than it is at home. “I had a postal and a letter from her last week,” Triffie says. “She was studying for some big examination, something in her English grammar, I think it was.”
    â€œI’m sure she’ll do fine, she was always good in grammar.” He runs a hand through his hair, and again she sees how tired he is.
    â€œI shouldn’t trouble you, sir,” she says, “only we’re a bit worried at home, about Will. Seems there’s something the matter, something on his mind, though he won’t say what. He – he don’t sleep well at nights.” She is reluctant to confess to the actual sleepwalking. “I thought it might be something at school, some other boys giving him a hard time, perhaps.”
    Mr. Bishop shakes his head. “No, he gets on fine with the other boys – he and Isaac French and Charlie Mercer are thick as thieves, the three of them. Where Charlie’s got his two older brothers here nobody dares bother anyone who goes around with Char. But you know, Will has a hard time with the lessons. He’s not as ignorant as poor little Charlie, but he’s having a hard struggle learning his letters. Not quick like you, or even average like Ruth. He doesn’t like school because it’s hard for him, and the worst of it is, I don’t have enough time for lads like Will and Char, to give them the extra help they need.”
    It hasn’t even occurred to Triffie that Will’s trouble might be the schoolwork itself. For her, learning has always come so naturally that she forgets there are children for whom books are an enemy, rather than a joyful release. And to think her own cousin, her dear little boy, should be such a child!
    â€œWell, now that I know what the trouble is, sir, I’ll be sure to give him extra help at