Introduction
Kezia is Afraid of her Father
Kezia, the small child, was fearful of her father. She was constantly attempting to avoid meeting him.
She felt relieved when he left the house, as his presence made her feel uneasy.
Out of fear, Kezia used to stammer in front of her father, but spoke normally with others.
He appeared to be so enormous to Kezia that she compared him to a giant.
Kezia’s grandmother desired that she communicate more with her parents and thus sent her to the drawing room on Sunday afternoons to speak with them while they were relaxing.
Kezia Makes a Birthday Gift for her Father
When one day Kezia had a cold and she did not go to school, her grandmother suggested she make with her own hands a pin cushion as a birthday gift for her father, whose birthday was next week.
As a result, Kezia stitched three sides of it together.
Then, having run out of scraps to fill it, she filled it with small pieces of paper she found on her mother’s bedroom table.
Then she sewed the pin cushion’s fourth side.
Later, her father became enraged when he could not locate the papers on which he had written the speech to be delivered the following day to the Port Authority.
When Kezia was questioned about it, she informed her father that she had torn and stuffed the papers into the pin cushion she had created!
As punishment, her father struck her hand with a ruler to teach her not to touch anything that was not hers.
Kezia’s Neighbours: The Macdonalds
Kezia was envious of Mr Macdonald’s happy family next door – his wife and five children.
When Mr Macdonald was free, he was constantly playing with his children.
They were laughing and taking pleasure in one another’s company. That is when Kezia recognised the existence of various types of fathers.
Kezia’s Opinion about her Father Finally Changed
When Kezia’s mother became ill and had to be hospitalised, her grandmother left Kezia in the care of Alice, the cook.
Kezia had a terrifying nightmare about a butcher with a knife and rope while sleeping and woke crying to find her father standing there.
He escorted Kezia to his room and sat beside her to console her. He dozed off due to exhaustion.
That’s when Kezia realised he’d have to work extremely hard and felt bad for destroying his papers. She informed him that he possessed an enormous heart.
SOLVED QUESTIONS & ANSWERSNCERT SOLVED QUESTIONS
Given below are some emotions that Kezia felt. Match the emotions in Column A with the items in Column B.
| A | B |
| 1. fear or terror | (i) father comes into her room to give her a goodbye kiss |
| 2. glad sense of relief | (ii) noise of the carriage grows fainter |
| 3. a ‘funny’ feeling, perhaps of understanding | (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 |
Answer :
| A | B |
| 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 goodby kiss (ii) noise of the carriage grows fainter |
| 3. A ‘funny’ feeling, perhaps of understanding | (vi) father comforts her and falls asleep |
II. Answer the following questions in one or two sentences.
- Why was Kezia afraid of her father?
Ans. Kezia was afraid of her father because he was extremely strict and was constantly commanding the rest of the family. He never engaged in play with her. He had large hands and a heavy face; his mouth, in particular, appeared large to Kezia when he yawned. She was particularly terrified by the way he looked at her through his spectacles.
- Who were the people in Kezia’s family?
Ans. Kezia’s family consisted of her mother, father, grandmother and herself, besides Alice, the cook.
- What was Kezia’s father’s routine
(i) before going to his office?
(iii) on Sundays?
(ii) after coming back from his office?Ans. (i) Before going to his office, Kezia’s father usually went into her room to give her a casual kiss.
(ii) When he returned from his office, he directed that tea be brought into the drawing room. Additionally, he requested that his mother bring him the newspaper and his slippers, and he requested that Kezia remove his boots and leave them outside..
(iii) Kezia’s father would stretch out on the sofa on Sundays. He would drape his handkerchief over his face, prop his feet up on one of the cushions, and snore soundly.
- In what ways did Kezia’s grandmother encourage her to get to know her father better?
Ans. Kezia’s grandmother encouraged her to develop a closer relationship with her father by sending her to the drawing room on Sunday afternoons to speak with her parents. She also suggested that Kezia make a pincushion out of a lovely piece of yellow silk as a birthday present for her father.
III. Discuss these questions in class with your teacher and then write down your answers in two or three paragraphs each.
- Kezia’s efforts to please her father resulted in displeasing him very much. How did this happen?Answer :
Kezia’s efforts to please her father backfired. Her grandmother would send her down to the drawing room on Sundays to speak with her father and mother.However, her presence irritated her father. He referred to her as a ‘little brown owl’. Her next attempt came when her grandmother suggested she make a pin cushion for her father’s upcoming birthday.
She worked diligently on the pin-cushion, meticulously stitching three sides of the cushion with double cotton.
She couldn’t find anything to scuff it with, and while her grandmother was out in the garden, she rummaged through her mother’s bedroom for scraps.
Finally, she discovered some delicate sheets of paper on the bedside table. She gathered them up, tore them apart, and stuffed them into the cushion.
She was unaware that the sheets of fine paper she had torn up contained her father’s speech scheduled to be delivered the following day at the Port Authority.
Her father reprimanded her for concealing items that were not hers and punished her by striking her palm with a ruler.
- 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?
Answer : Kezia compared her father to their next-door neighbour, Mr Macdonald, who had five children. He was a father who was kind, gentle, and forgiving.She noticed that he was always smiling and playing with his children whenever she looked around their house. He was kind to his children.
He stood directly opposite Kezia’s father. In contrast to Kezia’s father, he never disciplined his children. He spent his free time with them.
However, Kezia’s father was extremely strict and a strict disciplinarian, aside from the fact that he never played with her. Kezia’s father was a harried man who never expressed concern or affection for the small child who was truly terrified of him.
She was so afraid of her father that she would stutter whenever she spoke with him.
- How does Kezia begin to see her father as a human being who needs her sympathy?
Answer : When Kezia’s mother became ill, she was accompanied to the hospital by her grandmother. Kezia was left at home with the cook, Alice.She had a nightmare at night after the cook put her to bed. She saw a butcher with a knife and rope in her nightmare. She awoke shivering in fear.
She summoned her grandmother, but was surprised to discover her father standing near her bed. He snatched her into his arms and forced her to sleep beside him in his bed.
She crept up on him, snuggled her head under his arm, and clutched his shirt tightly. Her father requested that she rub her feet against his legs in order to keep warm. Her father had already retired to sleep.
This made her realise that he must work extremely hard every day, which leaves him too exhausted to be like Mr Macdonald. She expressed her newfound affection for her father by describing him as having a ‘big heart.’