That Forgetful Shore by Trudy Morgan-Cole Page B

closest she has to friends now that Kit’s gone; it’s strange to walk home from church with them on Sunday night and then stand up in the classroom on Monday as if she were a teacher. But Trif will do whatever she can to please Mr. Bishop and help him.
    By three o’clock the last lessons are finished, and Mr. Bishop ends everyone’s day by reading the latest chapter of Robinson Crusoe . He read that aloud the year Trif and Kit were doing the Fifth Reader; before that Trif remembers travelling through David Copperfield and Oliver Twist on the waves of Mr. Bishop’s deep voice, the voice that carried the children of Missing Point to shores their father’s dories would never take them to. She closes her eyes to hear him read the last words of the chapter, then moves quickly into action to help the little ones with their jackets. It will be more work as the winter gets colder, when she’ll have to wind them into scarves, find cuffs and mitts for small hands, put gaiters on over their shoes. They learn quickly to do for themselves, but the smallest children always need help.
    Ruth and Will walk home with the other children while Trif stays back. When the children are gone and the room is tidied, she leaves Mr. Bishop to correcting compositions, making plans for the next day, and helping any older students who may need extra coaching. This year Trif has noticed that Millicent Butler is singled out as she and Kit used to be: a clever girl who reads and figures well, who has a chance of going on to school in St. John’s and whose parents might have a chance of sending her. Mr. Bishop has kept Millicent behind several times this month already for extra tutelage; now, as she moves to get her coat, giggling with Sadie Parsons, he says, “Millicent, don’t you want to go over those Algebra questions? We talked about spending a little more time on those, remember?”
    The girl looks startled, almost guilty. “Oh, sir, I think I got all them learned; I don’t need to take up no more of your time.”
    â€œIf you’ve done them all, that’s wonderful,” Mr. Bishop says. “Just stay back a minute and let me look at them.”
    â€œNot today, sir, I got to help me mother,” Millicent says.
    â€œTomorrow, then?”
    â€œI … I don’t know, sir. I’m not sure how much extra tutoring Mother wants me to do, it takes up an awful lot of time, especially now the evenings are drawing in and it’s dark so early. I’ll…I’ll let you know.” She ducks out the door quickly behind Sadie before Mr. Bishop can reply.
    Trif, buttoning up her own coat, clicks her tongue and shakes her head in disapproval. She glances over at Mr. Bishop. “She’s a foolish young thing, to throw away an opportunity to learn like that,” Triffie says. “She don’t know what’s good for her. You ought to talk to her mother.”
    But Mr. Bishop is staring out the window, his eyes focused on something faraway. He seems not to have heard, and Triffie doesn’t want to presume, so she goes on home out of it.
    On Friday afternoon when the books and slates are put away, it’s time for recitations. Matthew White stands up and rhymes off “The Wreck of the Hesperus” in fine form, hands clasped behind his back, his voice an early echo of his father’s pulpit voice. An older boy recites a passage from the Odyssey . Millicent Butler, who was supposed to say the fourteenth chapter of the Gospel of John, is absent. As the penultimate performance of the day, before the recitation he always gives himself to finish off the week, Mr. Bishop announces Charlie Mercer.
    Charlie clambers up on to a three-legged stool Mr. Bishop pulls out for him. He shiggles around on the stool for a minute, then crosses one ankle over the opposite knee and lays his hands on his thighs. He lifts his head and begins to sing
    There’s a noble fleet of