Important Question and Answers
Q. ‘But mother says that kind is good ……’ What is mother referring to?
Ans. In the above lines the mother is referring to the garden snake.
Q. What does mother tell the poet about the snake?
Ans. The mother tells the poet that he should not be afraid of the garden snake as it is of a harmless variety.
Q. What does mother tell the poet to do when he sees a snake?
Ans. Mother tells the poet to stand aside and let the garden snake wiggle past.
Q. What was the poet’s first reaction when he saw the snake?
Ans. When the poet saw the snake the first time, he just ran away.
Q. Why was the poet scared of the snakes?
Ans. The poet was scared of the snake because people had told him that snakes are dangerous.
Q. How are some of the snakes?
Ans. Some snakes are dangerous.
Q. What does snake eat?
Ans. Snake eats up insects for food.
Q. How does the poet see the snake?
Ans. The poet sees the snake wiggling in the grass, he stands aside and watches him pass.
Q. The poet’s mother asks him not to be afraid of the garden snake. Why?
Ans. The poet’s mother says so because the poet saw a snake in the garden. Seeing it he ran away in fear. His mother knew that the garden snakes were not harmful. They were good and harmless. So, she asks the poet not to be afraid of snakes.
Q. Why is the child comfortable when he see the garden snake next time?
Ans. When the child sees the snake for the first time, he is scared but on being told by his mother that every snake is not dangerous, the child becomes comfortable. The next time when he comes across the snake in the garden, he does not run away.
Q. Write a short note about the popular belief about snakes.
Ans. The popular belief about snakes amongst the people is that they are poisonous. That is why people are always afraid of them. Their bites prove dangerous and sometimes fatal because of this belief.
Q. There is a phrase ‘a snake in the grass’. What does it mean?
Ans. The phrase ‘a snake in the grass’ conveys the idea about the people who are deceptive in nature but show themselves to be friendly.
Q. What lesson does the mother of the young child narrator teach him?
Ans. The narrator, being a child, in his ignorance, had assumed that all kinds of snakes are dangerous but when his mother comes to know about it, she explains to him that every kind of snake is not dangerous. Only a few kinds of snakes are harmful. This makes him peacefully admire the garden snake when he saw it next. The narrator also comes to know that it is important to gather knowledge about any new object or creature before making one’ opinion. This was the lesson that he learnt from his mother.