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? mourner bees enemy writer

The answer is: writer.

In the story "The Country of the Pointed Firs," by Sarah Orne Jewett, the narrator is actually a writer from Boston who comes to he village of Dunnet in Maine in order to finish her book. In the excerpt, she struggles to concentrate on her work after attending a funeral and contemplates on the fact that she does not belong in the village.

as for symbolic actions, the narrator's tearing down the wallpaper in an attempt to find the "woman" in the wallpaper represents her struggle to retain or regain her sanity.   the wallpaper has been part of her confinement and by her tearing it down, she is freeing herself from that confinement.