Here you will find the answers of textbook questions from the chapter The Little Girl, Class 9 English.

1. Given below are some emotions that Kezia felt. Match the emotions in column A with the emotions in column B.

Refer Beehive Page Number 38 for questions.

1. fear or terror – father comes home

2. glad sense of relief – noise of the carriage grows fainter

3. a ‘funny feeling’, perhaps of understanding – father comforts her and falls asleep

II. Answer the following questions in one or two sentences.

1. Why was Kezia afraid of her father?

Kezia was afraid of her father because she felt that he was so big. Thinking about him alone was like thinking about a giant. He was also a serious man who often talked to her harshly.

2. Who were the people in Kezia’s family?

Kezia’s family consisted of her parents and grandmother apart from her.

3. What was Kezia’s father’s routine

(i) before going to his office

Every morning before going to work, he walked into Kezia’s room and gave her a casual kiss.

(ii) after coming back from his office

After coming home, he would demand that his tea and slippers be brought into the living room and ask whether the paper hadn’t come yet.

(iii) on Sundays

On Sundays, Kezia’s father would lie stretched out on the sofa with his handkerchief on his face.

4. In what ways did Kezia’s grandmother encourage her to get to know her father better?

On Sundays, her grandmother would send her down into the drawing room to have a nice talk with her parents. She also encouraged Kezia to make nice gifts for her father.

III. Discuss these questions in class with your teacher and then write down the 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?

Once, Kezia’s grandmother encouraged her to make a pin-cushion as a birthday gift for her father. Kezia stitched up the cushion three sides, tore up the fine sheets of paper she found in her mother’s bedroom and stuffed the case with those paper scraps. Unfortunately, she had torn up the paper on which her father had written a speech. When Kezia’s father found out what she had done, he became really angry and beat her. Thus, Kezia’s efforts to please her father resulted in displeasing him very much.

2. Kezia decides that there are ‘different kinds of fathers’. What kind of father was Macdonald and how was he different from Kezia’s father?

When Kezia found their neighbor Macdonald playing with his five children and having a lot of fun, she decided that there were different kinds of fathers. Unlike Kezia’s father, Macdonald was a fun-loving person who enjoyed playing with his children. Kezia’s father, on the other hand, was very strict and hardly ever spoke gently to her let alone play with her. She was even afraid of being in front of him.

3. How does Kezia begin to see her father as a human being who needs sympathy?

Once, Kezia’s mother fell ill and had to be admitted to a hospital. Her grandmother accompanied her. So, Kezia was alone in the house with their cook Alice. Kezia often had nightmares and then it was her grandmother who comforted her. Kezia had the same nightmare in the absence of her grandmother as well. She woke up from sleep crying and shivering. When she opened her eyes, she saw her father standing near her. He asked her what the matter was and she told him about the bad dream she had. Suddenly, he bent down, caught up the child and carried her to his bedroom. He made her comfortable by allowing her to sleep with her head resting on his heart. Soon after, he fell asleep due to fatigue. When Kezia realized that her father had fallen asleep before she did, she felt a funny feeling from the understanding that he too was a human being who gets tired after working for the whole day and needed sympathy.