That Forgetful Shore by Trudy Morgan-Cole Page A

Triffie says. “You always did well enough by our crowd, even though you had no-one helping you then.”
    â€œAh, yes, but it’s so much easier now. You’re a gift from God, is what you are, Triffie. And you have a gift for it, a way with the little ones, there’s no doubt of that. It’s a shame –”
    But Triffie doesn’t want to talk about what’s a shame. “I’m glad to be here,” she says, cutting him off, “and Uncle Albert and Aunt Rachel don’t mind so long as I’m bringing in a little money. It’s a grand help to them.” Like most fishermen, her uncle sees little cash money from one season to the next, except in spring when he goes to the ice. Trif’s pay packet is a boon to the household: she keeps none of the money but Aunt Rachel expects her to do less around the house, in honour of her status as a working woman.
    â€œAfter dinner, the third and fourth book will be doing History,” Mr. Bishop says, “and the older ones have some Mathematics to work on. They’ll all be busy for awhile. Why not let me have a try with Charlie while you teach the other little ones their sums?”
    â€œHe’s not as bad with sums as he is with his letters,” Trif says, opening her lunch pail. The children all go home for dinners, but she has taken to packing two slices of bread with partridgeberry jam and having it here in the schoolroom with Joe Bishop, enjoying this little time talking about the children and their classes, feeling like a teacher.
    â€œSums will do him more good than letters,” Mr. Bishop says, “but we must do our best to teach him his alphabet at least. If he can count, add and subtract, and knows his alphabet, that’s the best we’ll do by him. And all that might take him until he’s old enough to go out in boat anyway.”
    Later in the day she passes the bench where Joe Bishop and Charlie Mercer are bent over the slate. The Primer is laid aside: Mr. Bishop has gone back to trying to teach Char the alphabet. He draws well, his little sketches bringing scenes vividly to life with a few lines. On Charlie’s slate he has drawn a large curving fish, curled into a half-circle, a few quick lines delineating scales and gills, a single eye peering up. Joe traces the curving outer line of the fish’s body. “That’s C,” he tells the boy. “C for codfish – can you see the codfish shape? When you see that shape, think of the codfish, the letter C.”
    â€œThat was clever,” she tells Mr. Bishop later. “Do you think he’ll remember?”
    Joe Bishop shrugs. “He might; he might not. The problem with teaching A is for Adam, or apple, is that half the children don’t know Adam – well, from Adam. And if they’ve seen an apple one Christmas, that’s all they’ve seen. A for axe, B for black bear, C for codfish – that would make more sense.”
    â€œYou should write your own alphabet book,” Trif says.
    â€œIf I only had time,” he sighs, picking up a stack of copybooks. “Anyway, Charlie couldn’t sit still for more than A, B and C, so after C for codfish I sent him out to stack firewood with the older boys. Someday we’ll have to tell him C is for Charlie too, but that might only confuse him.”
    â€œWell, you helped him, anyway. Better than I could have done.”
    â€œIt’s only experience, Triffie. I’ve been ten years in the classroom now, and I’ve learned a few tricks. I’ll take Charlie now and then for some extra help, when I can spare the time – you can make it up by reading with the Third Reader children. You’re such a good reader, you could be working with the older ones.”
    Triffie thinks the older children, so recently her classmates, won’t accept her as their teacher. Sadie Parsons and Millicent Butler, both doing the Fifth Reader now, are the