Page 53 - 8th-language-english-2

c1 answer the following questions and share your responses with
your partner.

1. Why was the morning walk pleasant to Mr. A.L. Hendricks?
Not to be republished
2. “The exercise is good for me,” says the narrator. What was
that exercise?

3. What did the narrator notice one morning?
4. How did the smaller boy behave while playing with the bigger
©KTBS
boy?
Now read on silently.
7. The next morning the boys were there again, and a man was standing
at the gate watching them. I stopped and looked, just to see what
the white boy was making his little servant do. To my surprise,
now, the dark boy was commanding, while the little white youngster
did everything. The little dark boy was striding imperiously up and
down the lawn, while the white youngster walked abjectly behind
him.

8. ‘Get me a banana!’ The little boy ran into the house and reappeared
shortly with a banana. ‘Peel it for me!’, the little white boy peeled
the banana and handed it to his dark master.
9. I saw it now. It indeed was a game, a game I had played as a
child. Each boy took it in turn every alternate day to be the boss,
the other, the slave. It had been great fun to me as a youngster.
I smiled as I remembered. I looked at the man standing by the gate.
He was a white man. I remembered what I had thought yesterday.
He, no doubt, I thought to myself, was wondering if the black race
is superior to the white. I laughed gently to myself. How silly we
grown-ups are to misinterpret a child’s action? This man, I said to
myself, will be worrying all day. Perhaps he thinks the blacks will
in the end rule over the whites. Now I will try to clarify and drive
away all the doubts from his mind.
10. “Perhaps you are thinking that one day or the other, the blacks
will rule over the whites. I know you do so, for you just saw how
the black commanded the white. But gentleman, don’t have any
such wrong notions, for, that’s only a game. Just yesterday I saw
the little white boy commanding the black boy. Only grown ups are
silly, aren’t we?” said I.

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