my anxious scribe felt very dull that day; a sheep-bell tinkled nearby, and called my wandering wits after it. what does scribe mean as it is used in this way?

The original passage is "One anxious scribe felt very dull that day; a sheep-bell tinkled near by, and called her wandering wits after it." It is taken from chapter IV in the book The Country of Pointed Firs, by Sarah Orne Jewett.

The book was written in 1896 and the character who is narrating the story is sitting by the school window after attending a funeral and watching the procession of mourners pass by. Bees are flying in, attracted by the scent  of the ink used by the students: ' their riots over the ink, which I had bought at the Landing store, and discovered too late to be scented with bergamot, as if to refresh the labors of anxious scribes.'

Scribes, in this context, is used to refer to the students themselves. The ink is scented to make it more pleasant - or at least more endurable - for them to write and learn and sit quietly while life goes by outside. When the narrator says, 'One anxious scribe felt very dull that day,' the word scribe is referring to the narrator herself. She feels different not only for attending the funeral but also for not feeling as if she belonged where she is living now.

As its original meaning, scribe refers to a person whose job is to write and/or make copies of documents. In Ancient Egypt, the scribes were in charge of writing letters and documents, working for the royalty as well as people who were not able to write.

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