That Forgetful Shore Read Online Free PDF Page B

home.”
    â€œHe couldn’t wish for a better tutor. If only I could do more here at the school. The Board has promised me they will try to find money to hire me an assistant, and I don’t see how I’ll carry on without one.”
    His eyes brighten suddenly. “If the money does come – the person wouldn’t have to be a qualified teacher. Indeed, couldn’t be, not for the money they could pay. Anyone who had done well in school could help – you could take the position, do what you were doing in school, without the bother of your own lessons, and get paid for it. Would you like that?”
    She bites back her immediate joyous assent. It’s hardly the same as going to St. John’s, being with her beloved Peony, studying at a college – but it would be something. A classroom is better than a kitchen, and earning her own money would be more than she dares hope for. “I don’t know, sir,” she says. “I mean, of course I would like to do it, but I don’t know if my uncle would allow me. I’d have to ask him.”
    â€œOf course, of course. And it’s all speculation, now, until we see if the money is there. Still it would be a wonderful advantage to you, and a great help to me, if it came to pass.”
    She walks down the road behind Will and Ruth, thinking of Will’s troubles with school, planning how she will teach him to read. Why did he say nothing at home about the trouble he was having? But then, she thinks, he did say he hated going to school. She had put it down to the laziness of a boy who would rather be out playing on the beach.
    What can any adult know of what goes on in a child’s mind? Trif thinks of her own childhood, how little her aunt and uncle guessed of anything that might please or trouble her. Hers was a private, stormy world, and Will’s must be too. But his private world bursts into his dreams and tears him from his quiet bed.
    That night, Aunt Rachel tries the rope cure, explaining to Will that it will stop him if he tries to walk in his sleep. About two in the morning Trif, lying awake, hears a crash from across the hall, followed by a howl of pain. She goes across to find Will lying on the floor bawling. He is tangled in blankets, his foot tethered to the bedpost. He’s gotten out of bed in his sleep, tripped in the rope and fallen hard enough to wake himself. The noise wakes Ruth, who usually sleeps soundly in the bed beside him. Aunt Rachel, arriving right behind Trif, helps calm both children down and get them back to sleep, but the fall frightens Will as much as his earlier wanderings frightened his mother and cousin. He tears at the rope, insists they take it off, refuses to lie down unless they promise never to tie him again.
    Nor does his fear lessen on future nights. He refuses to be tethered, putting up such a howl that, despite spankings, his resolve cannot be broken. Aunt Rachel tries to tie him on after he’s asleep, but the same child who can wander down to the kitchen, open a cupboard, cut himself a slice of bread and butter it without waking, wakes instantly when he feels the touch of the twine around his ankle, and howls till it is taken away.
    â€œSo you think it’s trouble with his lessons got him so nervous?” Aunt Rachel asks Trif one Saturday as they scrub the floor together. “Do Mr. Bishop whip the youngsters if they don’t get their lessons right?”
    â€œNo, I only ever saw him use the whip on the bigger fellows if they’re saucy or won’t listen. The little ones gets a tap on the hand with the ruler if they can’t say their lessons, but no worse than that. I ’low all Will needs is a bit of extra help like I’ve been giving him at home. Mr. Bishop don’t have the time he needs, with all them youngsters in that one room.”
    Trif is feeling her way cautiously towards the question of being hired as Mr. Bishop’s assistant; she