Last Updated on February 6, 2023 by Admin
Here we have given NCERT Solutions for Class 9 English Beehive Chapter 3 The Little Girl by Katherine Mansfield.
Thinking about The Text
Q:1 Given below are some emotions that Kezia felt. Match the emotions in the Column A with the items in Column B.
Column A
1. fear or terror
2. glad sense of relief
3. a “funny” feeling, perhaps of understanding
Column B
(i) father comes into her room to give her a goodbye kiss
(ii) noise of the carriage grows fainter
(iii) father comes home
(iv) speaking to father
(v) going to bed when alone at home
(vi) father comforts her and falls asleep
(vii) father stretched out on the sofa, snoring
Ans:
1. fear or terror (iii) father comes home (iv) speaking to father (v) going to bed when alone at home (vii) father stretched out on the sofa, snoring
2. glad sense of relief (i) father comes into her room to give her a goodbye kiss (ii) noise of the carriage grows fainter
3. a “funny” feeling, perhaps of understanding (vi) father comforts her and falls asleep
Q:2 Answer the following questions in one or two sentences.
1. Why was Kezia afraid of her father?
Ans: For Kezia her father was a figure to be feared and avoided. He was an authoritative person. Every morning before going to work he came into her room and gave her a casual kiss, to which she responded with “Goodbye, Father”. He never spoke to her lovingly. Besides, he never played with her as the Macdonalds played with one another.
2. Who were the people in Kezia’s family?
Ans: Kezia’s family included her mother, father and grandmother.
3. What was Kezia’s father’s routine
(i) before going to his office?
Ans: (i) Before going to work Kezia’s father came into her room and gave her a casual kiss, to which she responded with “Goodbye, Father”.
(ii) after coming back from his office?
Ans: After coming back from his office, he ordered in a loud voice for tea to be brought into the drawing room. He also asked his mother to bring him the newspaper and his slippers, and Kezia to pull off his boots.
(iii) on Sundays?
Ans: On Sunday, Kezia’s father would stretch out on the sofa covering his face with his handkerchief and sleeping soundly.
4. In what ways did Kezia’s grandmother encourage her to get to know her father better?
Ans: On Sunday afternoons Grandmother sent Kezia down to the drawing-room to have a “nice talk with her Father and Mother”. But she found Mother reading and Father stretched out on the sofa, his handkerchief on his face, his feet on one of the best cushions, sleeping soundly and snoring.
One day, when she was kept indoors with a cold, her grandmother told her that father’s birthday was next week, and suggested she should make him a pin-cushion for a gift out of a beautiful piece of yellow silk. She cuddled Kezia when she was beaten by Father.
Q:3 Discuss these questions in class with your teacher and then write down your answers in two or three paragraphs each.
1. Kezia’s efforts to please her father resulted in displeasing him very much. How did this happen?
Ans: As suggested by her grandmother Kezia decided to make a pin cushion out of a beautiful piece of yellow silk for her father’s birthday. Laboriously, with a double cotton, she stitched three sides. But what to fill it with? That was the question. The grandmother was out in the garden, and she wandered into Mother’s bedroom to look for scraps. On the bed-table she discovered a great many sheets of fine paper, gathered them up, tore them into tiny pieces, and stuffed her case, then sewed up the fourth side.
That night there was a hue and cry in the house. This was because the sheets she had torn were her father’s speech for the Port Authority had been lost. Her father scolded her for touching things that did not belong to her and punished her by hitting her palm with a ruler.
2. Kezia decides that there are “different kinds of fathers” after secretly watching her next-door neighbour Mr Macdonald play with his children.
Ans: The Macdonalds lived next door. They had five children. Looking through a gap in the fence the Kezia saw them playing ‘tag’ in the evening. The father with the baby, Mao, on his shoulders, two little girls hanging on to his coat pockets ran round and round the flower-beds, shaking with laughter. Another day she saw the boys turn the hose on Mr Macdonald —and he tried to catch them laughing all the time. Then it was she decided there were different sorts of fathers.
Kezia’s father, on the other hand, hardly spent any time with her. Everyday, he came back home tired after his day’s work and busied himself with the newspaper sipping his evening tea. Even on Sundays, he spent his time sleeping on the sofa.
3. How does Kezia begin to see her father as a human being who needs her sympathy?
Ans: Suddenly, one day, Mother became ill, and she and Grandmother went to hospital. Kezia was left alone in the house with Alice, the cook. At night, after she is put to bed by the cook, she has a nightmare. She calls for her grandmother but, to her surprise, she finds her father standing near her bed. He takes her in his arms and makes her sleep next to him. Half asleep, she creeps close to him, snuggles her head under his arm, and holds tightly to his shirt. Her father asks her to rub her feet against his legs for warmth. He was so tired that he slept before she did.
She realizes that her father has to work hard every day and this leaves him too tired to be like Mr Macdonald. She expresses her altered feelings for her father by saying that he has a ‘big heart’.
I hope that you would have enjoyed NCERT Solutions for Class 9 English Beehive Chapter 3 The Little Girl by Katherine Mansfield. If you have any query regarding this chapter, please feel free to get in touch with me through comment box or social media and I assure you to resolve all your queries related to the topic as soon as possible.