NCERT Class 9 English The Little Girl

The Little Girl

BEFORE YOU READ

• Do you feel you know your parents better now, than when you were much younger? Perhaps you now understand the reasons for some of their actions that used to upset you earlier.

• This story about a little girl whose feelings for her father change from fear to understanding will probably find an echo in every home.

1. TO the little girl he was a figure to be feared and avoided. Every morning before going to work he came into her room and gave her a casual kiss, to which she responded with “Goodbye, Father”. And oh, there was a glad sense of relief when she heard the noise of the carriage growing fainter and fainter down the long road! In the evening when he came home she stood near the staircase and heard his loud voice in the hall. “Bring my tea into the drawing-room... Hasn’t the paper come yet? Mother, go and see if my paper’s out there — and bring me my slippers.”

2. “Kezia,” Mother would call to her, “if you’re a good girl you can come down and take off father’s boots.” Slowly the girl would slip down the stairs, more slowly still across the hall, and push open the drawing-room door. By that time he had his spectacles on and looked at her over them in a way that was terrifying to the little girl. “Well, Kezia, hurry up and pull off these boots and take them outside. Have you been a good girl today?” “I d-d-don’t know, Father.” “You d-d-don’t know? If you stutter like that Mother will have to take you to the doctor.”

3. She never stuttered with other people — had quite given it up — but only with Father, because then she was trying so hard to say the words properly. “What’s the matter? What are you looking so wretched about? Mother, I wish you taught this child not to appear on the brink of suicide... Here, Kezia, carry my teacup back to the table carefully.” He was so big — his hands and his neck, especially his mouth when he yawned. Thinking about him alone was like thinking about a giant.

4. On Sunday afternoons Grandmother sent her down to the drawing-room to have a “nice talk with Father and Mother”. But the little girl always found Mother reading and Father stretched out on thesofa, his handkerchief on his face, his feet on one  of the best cushions, sleeping soundly and snoring  She sat on a stool, gravely watched him until he woke and stretched, and asked the time — then looked at her. “Don’t stare so, Kezia. You look like a little brown owl.” 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.

5. Laboriously, with a double cotton, the little girl 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. Father’s great speech for the Port Authority had been lost. Rooms were searched; servants questioned. Finally Mother came into Kezia’s room. “Kezia, I suppose you didn’t see some papers on a table in our room?” “Oh yes,” she said, “I tore them up for my surprise.” “What!” screamed Mother. “Come straight down to the dining-room this instant.”

6. And she was dragged down to where Father was pacing to and fro, hands behind his back. “Well?” he said sharply. Mother explained. He stopped and stared at the child. “Did you do that?” “N-n-no”, she whispered. “Mother, go up to her room and fetch down the damned thing — see that the child’s put to bed this instant.”

Thinking about the Text

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

1. Why was Kezia afraid of her father?

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

3. What was Kezia’s father’s routine

(i) before going to his office?

(ii) after coming back from his office?

(iii) on Sundays?

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

II. 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?

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

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

Please refer to attached file for NCERT Class 9 English The Little Girl