Chapter 4 The Ashes That Made Trees Bloom Important Questions Class 7 Honeycomb English
Short Answer Type Questions
Question 1. What was given as the meal to their pet?
Answer
They fed their pet with tidbits of fish from their own chopsticks, and also boiled rice.
Question 2. What did the white heron do?
Answer
The white heron followed the footsteps of the old man to pick up the works.
Answer
The leader of the van allowed the old man to remain seated at the cherry tree considering him to be very old.
Question 4. Why did the carvel couple behave politely towards the dog?
Answer
They behaved politely towards the dog hoping that he would find treasure for them.
Question 5. How did the greedy couple react after the blooming of the trees?
Answer
They gathered the remaining ashes of the mill and kept to make the withered trees blossom.
Question 6. Whom did the leader of the van catch sight of?
Answer
The leader of the van caught the sight of the old man up in the tree.
Question 7. What happened when the greedy man threw ashes over the landlord.
Answer
When he threw handful of ashes over him, the wind below the dust in the nose and eyes of the landward.
Question 8. Why did the carvel couple behave politely towards the dog?
Answer
They behaved politely towards the dog hoping that he would find treasure for them.
Question 9. Where did the good old man sprinkle a pinch of ashes?
Answer
He sprinkled a pinch of ashes on the cherry tree.
Question 10. How did the farmer please the daimios?
Answer
The daimio was pleased by seeing the magic of the withered cherry tree bursting into blossom.
Question 11. Did the farmer forget his virtues after becoming rich?
Answer
No, he didn’t. The kind farmer bought a piece of land hosted a feast for his friends and helped his poor neighbours when he became rich.
Question 12. Why did the wicked couple coaxed the dog and where?
Answer
As they heard their neighbours good luck, the wicked couple coaxed the dog to their garden and offered him fish and other dainties, hoping for he would also find treasure for them.
Question 13. What happened when the old couple began to make rice pastry?
Answer
During the New year, the old man wished to bake rice pastry. As he lifted his hammer to pound the mass onto dough, the whole mass took the hand mill and filled it with beans to make bean source, instead of that the gold coins were dropping from the mill like a rain.
Question 14. What was the advices given by the spirit of the dog to his owner in his dream again?
Answer
The spirit of the dog said him to take the ashes of the mill and spread it on the withered trees. They would bloom again.
Question 15. What happened when the dog took the greedy couple near the pine tree?
Answer
As the dog took near the pine tree growing in their garden, they began to paw and scratch the ground with spade and hoe to find the treasure beneath ground.
Question 16. Why daimios did punish the wicked couple?
Answer
The wicked farmer was killed brutally by the daimios men and was thus punished for his greed.
Question 17. Did the farmer forget his virtues after becoming rich?
Answer
No, he didn’t. The kind farmer bought a piece of land hosted a feast for his friends and helped his poor neighbours when he became rich.
Question 18. How did the old couple treat their pet?
Answer
The old couple love their dog as it were their own baby. The old man made a cushion of blue crape for the dog. They were kind towards all the living creature.
Question 19. What did the old couple do as they were rich?
Answer
The old couple bought a piece of land. Arranged a feast for their friends and their poor neighbours. They were also kind to their pet no doubt rich or not.
Question 20. What did the greedy couple do with the mortar and mill?
Answer
The couple began to pound and grind with the mortar and the mill. Later the pastry and source turned in a mass of worms. Therefore, they angrily chopped the mill into pieces of wood.
Answer
The spirit of the dog said him to take the ashes of the mill and spread it on the withered trees. They would bloom again.
Long Answer Questions
Question 1. How does the story underscores values such as honesty, compassion, diligence with a hint of magical realism?
Answer
The love of the dog for old couple was obvious as they look after it with affection. The story is different as magic of his appearance in dreams and of changing food into gold. These elements create interest of the reader. Moreover, the love, kindness and compassionate behaviour made the couple rich. However, they did not leave their virtues; they were appreciated by the king also. On the contrast, the cruel and wicked couple were punished for their misdeeds.
Question 2. What were the customs during the days of daimios?
Answer
During the days of daimios, people would shut their windows when their landowner passed by people were not allowed to look down on the landlords. All the people of the village would kneel down upon their hands and knees until the procession passed by as the train drew near, the tall man asked everyone to kneel down on their knees and would remain prostrate.
Question 3. (i) How did the spirit of the dog help the farmer first?
(ii) How did it help him next?
Answer
(i) The spirit of the dog came in the farmer’s dream and first asked him to chop the pine tree and make mortar and hand-mill out of it. With the mortar and mill it gave the farmer heaps of gold,
(ii) The dog’s spirit again came in the farmer’s dream for the second time and told the farmer to collect ‘the ash of the mortar and the mill and sprinkle it on the withered trees and they will blossom’. The farmer did this in front of the daimio and was awarded with lavish gifts.
Question 4. Explain how the dog was killed.
Answer
The greedy couple who was hoping the dog to find them a treasure, coaxed him into their garden and set fish and other dainties before him. But the dog did not had a bit of it. They dragged him outside and the dog took near the pine tree growing in the garden. The greedy couple began to dig the pit with a spade, but the result was a dead kitten. This made lost temper and beat the dog furiously to death.
Question 5. Explain how the dog was killed.
Answer
The greedy couple who was hoping the dog to find them a treasure, coaxed him into their garden and set fish and other dainties before him. But the dog did not had a bit of it. They dragged him outside and the dog took near the pine tree growing in the garden. The greedy couple began to dig the pit with a spade, but the result was a dead kitten. This made lost temper and beat the dog furiously to death.
Question 6. How did the old couple take care of Muko, the dog?
Answer
The couple had been kind and generous. As they had no children, they loved it as though it were a baby. The old dame made it a cushion of blue crape, and at mealtime, Muko for that was its name—would sit on it as snug as any cat. The kind people fed the pet with tidbits of fish from their chopsticks, and all the boiled rice it wanted.
Question 7. Listening to the story of the good old man, what did the wicked old man desire?
Answer
When the greedy neighbor heard of the story of good old man and Daimio, he took some of the magic ashes and went out on the highway. There he waited until a daimio’s train came along, and, instead of kneeling down like the crowd, he climbed a withered cherry tree. He also desired to be privileged by the Daimio.
Question 8. What happened when the wicked old man tried to bloom the withered tree with the ash?
Answer
Like the good old man, the wicked old man, too, had a desire to impress the Daimio by blooming the tree with the magic ash. So when the daimio himself was almost directly under him, he threw a handful of ashes over the tree, which did not change a particle. The wind blew the fine dust in the noses and eyes of the daimio and his wife. Such sneezing and choking! It spoiled all the pomp and dignity of the procession.
Question 9. How was the wicked old man punished to death?
Answer
After the sprinkling of ash by the wicked old man destroyed the grandeur of the train, the man whose business it was to cry, “Get down on your knees,” seized the old fool by the collar, dragged him from the tree, and tumbled him and his ash-basket into the ditch by the road. Then, beating him soundly, he left him for dead.
Question 10. What was the wicked old couple doing when the good old man went to ask for the ash?
Answer
Guided by the spirit of the dog when the good old man went to ask for the ash from the wicked neighbors, he found the miserable old pair sitting at the edge of their square fireplace, in the middle of the floor, smoking, and spinning. From time to time they warmed their hands and feet with the blaze from some bits of the mill, while behind them lay a pile of the broken pieces.
Question 11. What happened to the wicked old couple when they used the mortar and the mill to get rich?
Answer
When the wicked hag secretly watched the good old couple getting rich with the mortar and the mill, they thought to give it a try. The next day the stingy and wicked neighbor came and borrowed the mortar and magic mill. They filled one with boiled rice and the other with beans. Then the old man began to pound and the woman to grind. But at the first blow and turn, the pastry and sauce turned into a foul mass of worms.
Question 12. How did the good old man make the mortar for the rice pastry?
Answer
As instructed by the spirit of the dog, the old man chopped down the tree and cut out of the middle of the trunk a section about two feet long. With great labor, partly by fire, partly by the chisel, he scraped out a hollow place as big as a small bowl. He then made a long-handled hammer of wood, such as is used for pounding rice.
Extract Based Questions
Extract 1.
One day the dog came running to him, putting his, paws against his legs and motioning with his head to some spot behind. The old man at first thought his pet was only playing and did not mind it. But the dog kept on whining and running to and fro for some minutes. Then the old man followed the dog a few yards to a place where the animal began a lively scratching. Thinking it was possibly a buried bone or bit of fish, the old man struck his hoe in the earth, when, lo! a pile of gold gleamed before him.
Questions
(i) What was the intention of the dog?
(ii) Why was the dog ‘whining and running’?
(iii) What did the old man think was buried?
(iv) What was there when he struck his hoe?
(v) Write the past participle ‘gleam’.
Answer
(i) The dog wanted to take his master to a heap.
(ii) The dog was excited to show his master the heap of riches.
(iii) The old man thought that it was possibly a buried bone or bit of fish.
(iv) There was a pile of gold gleamed when struck his hoe.
(v) Gleamed.
Extract 2.
So the old man chopped down the tree and cut out of the middle of the trunk a section about two feet long. With great labour, partly by fire, partly by the chisel, he scraped out a hollow place as big as a small bowl. He then made a long handled hammer of wood, such as is used for pounding rice.
When New Year’s time drew near, he wished to make some rice pastry. When the rice was all boiled, granny put it into the mortar, the old man lifted his hammer to pound the mass into dough, and the blows fell heavy and fast till the pastry was all ready for baking. Suddenly the whole mass turned into a heap of gold coins. When the old woman took the hand-mill, and filling it with beans began to grind, the gold dropped like rain.
Questions
(i) What did the old man do to the tree?
(ii) What did he wish to make for New Year?
(iii) What did they do when the rice was boiled?
(iv) What happened to the food?
(v) Give the meaning of ‘Pounding’.
Answer
(i) The old man chopped down the tree and cut out of the middle of the trunk a section about two feet long.
(ii) When New Year’s time drew near, he wished to make some rice pastry.
(iii) When the rice was all boiled, granny put it into the mortar, the old man lifted his hammer to pound the mass into dough.
(iv) The whole mass turned into a heap of gold coins. When the old woman took the hand-mill and filling it with beans began to grind, the gold dropped like rain.
(v) It means repeated and heavy striking or hitting someone or something.
Extract 3.
Not long after that, the good old man dreamed again, and the spirit of the dog spoke to him, telling him how the wicked people had burned the mill made from the pine tree. “Take the ashes of the mill, sprinkle them on the withered trees, and they will bloom again,” said the dog-spirit.
Questions
(i) Who came in good old man’s dream?
(ii) What did wicked man do with the mill?
(iii) What instruction did the spirit give to the old man?
(iv) What change happen to the withered trees?
(v) Give past participle of ‘spoke’.
Answer
(i) The spirit of the dog came in the good old man’s dreams.
(ii) The wicked man had burned the mill.
(iii) The spirit instructed the old man to take the ashes of the milk and to sprinkle them on the withered trees.
(iv) The withered trees started blooming again.
(v) Spoken.
Extract 4.
Now, in? the days of the daimios, it was the custom, when their lord passed by, for all the loyal people to shut up their high windows. They even pasted them fast with a slip of paper, so as not to commit the impertinence of looking down on his lordship. All the people along the road would fall upon their hands and knees and remain prostrate until the procession passed by. The train drew near. One tall, competent man marched ahead, crying out to the people by the way, “Get down on your knees! Get down on your knees!” And everyone kneeled down while the procession was passing.
Questions
(i) What was the custom of the daimyo’s?
(ii) What did they paste on high windows?
(iii) How long did they remain prostrate?
(iv) Who cried out to the people?
(v) Write an antonym competent’.
Answer
(i) In the days of the daimio’s, it was the custom, when their lord passed by, for all the loyal people to shut up their high windows.
(ii) They pasted the windows with a slip of paper.
(iii) They remained prostrate until the procession passed by.
(iv) One tall, competent man cried out to the people to get down.
(v) Incompetent/ inefficient.