CBSE solutions for English Communicative - Main Course Book Interact in English Class 9 chapter 6.1 - Tom Sawyer [Latest edition]

Here's a glimpse of a naughty child whose life is full of fun and frolic . 

One of the reasons why Tom's mind had drifted away from ita secret troubles was that it bad found a new and weighty matter to interest itself about. Becky Thatcher had stopped coming to school. Tom bad struggled with his pride a few days and tried to "whistle her down the wind," but failed. He began to find himself hanging around her father's house all night and feeling very miserable. She was ill. What if she should die! There was distraction in the thought. Tom Sawyer no longer took an interest in war, nor even in piracy. The charm of life was gone; there was nothing but dreariness left. He put his hoop away, and his bat; there was no joy in them any more. His aunt was concerned. She began to try all manners of remedies on him. She was one of those people who are Infatuated with patent medicines and all new-fangled methods of producing health or mending it. She was an inveterate experimenter in these things. When something fresh in this line came out, she was in a fever, right away, to try it; not on herself, for she was never ailing, but on anybody else that came handy. 
2. She tried every remedy she could. Yet, not with standing all this, the boy grew more and more melancholy and pale and dejected. She added hot baths, sitz baths, shower baths, and plunges. The boy remained as dismal as a hearse. She began to assist the boy with a slim oatmeal diet and blister-plaster&. She calculated his capacity as she would judge and filled him up every day with quack cure-alls. 
3. Tom had become indifferent to persecution by this time. This phase filled the old lady's heart with consternation. This indifference must be broken up at any cost. Now she heard of Pain-killer for the first time. She ordered a lot at once. She tasted it and was filled with gratitude. It was simply fire in a liquid form. She dropped the water treatment and everything else, and pinned her faith on Pain-killer. She gave Tom a teaspoonful and watched with the deepest anxiety for the result. Her troubles were instantly at rest, her soul at peace again; for the 'indifference' was broken up. The boy could not have shown a wilder, heartier interest, if she had built a fire under him. 
4. Tom felt that it was time to wake up; this sort of life might be romantic enough, in his blighted condition, but it was getting to have too little sentiment and too much distracting variety about it. So he thought over various plans for relief and finally hit upon that of professing to be fond of Pain-killer. He asked for it so often that he became a nuisance and his aunt ended up by telling him to help himself and quit bothering her. If it had been Sid, she would have had no misgivings to alloy her delight; but since it was Tom, she watched the bottle clandestinely. She found that the medicine did really diminish, but it did not occur to her that the boy was mending the health of a crack in the sitting-room floor with it. 
5. One day Tom was in the act of dosing the crack when his aunt's yellow cat came along, purring, eyeing the teaspoon avariciously and begging for a taste. Tom said: "Peter, now you've asked for it, and I'll give it to you, because there ain't anything mean about me; but if you find you don't like it, you mustn't blame anybody but your own self." 
6. Tom pried his mouth open and poured down the Pain-killer. Peter sprang a couple of yards in the air, and then delivered a war-whoop and set off round and round the room, banging against furniture, upsetting flower-pots, and making general havoc. Next he rose on his hind feet and pranced around, in a frenzy of enjoyment, with his head over his shoulder and his voice proclaiming his unappeasable happiness. Then he went tearing around the house again spreading chaos and destruction in his path. Aunt Polly entered in time to see him throw a few double summersaults, deliver a final mighty hurrah, and sail through the open window, carrying the rest of the flower-pots with him. The old lady stood petrified with astonishment, peering over her glasses; Tom lay on the floor hysterical with laughter.
"Tom, what on earth ails that cat?" 
"I don't know, aunt," gasped the boy. 
7. The old lady was bending down, Tom watching, with interest emphasized by anxiety. Too late he divined her 'drift'. The handle of the telltale teaspoon was visible under the sofa. Aunt Polly took it, held it up. Tom winced, and dropped his eyes. Aunt Polly raised him by the usual handle - his ear - and cracked his head soundly with her thimble. 
"Now, sir, what did you want to treat that poor dumb beast so, for?" 
"I done it out of pity for him - because he hadn't any aunt." 
"Hadn't any aunt! -you numskull. What has that got to do with it?" 
"Heaps. Because if he'd had one, she'd a burnt him out herself! She'd a roasted his bowels out of him 'thout any more feeling than if he was a human!" 
Tom looked up in her face with just a perceptible twinkle peeping through his gravity. 
"I know you was meaning for the best, aunty, and so was I with Peter. It done him good, too. I never see him get around so-" 

On the basis of your reading of the extract, tick the most appropriate answer : 

a. Tom's mind had drifted away because 
• Becky Thatcher had stopped coming to school 
• he no longer took an interest in war. 
• the charm oflife was gone. 
• he had put his hoop and his bat away. 
b. Aunt Polly was concerned because: 
• Tom was hanging around Becky Thatcher's father's house all night 
• Tom no longer took an interest in anything 
• she was infatuated with patent medicines 
• she had a fever 
c. She was filled with gratitude when she tested the new medicine as 
• it was simply fire in a liquid form. 
• her troubles were instantly at rest 
• Tom's indifference was broken. 
• Tom was responding well 
d. 'Mending the health of a crack' means 
• repairing a crack in the sitting-room floor 
• looking after his health 
• pouring the medicine into a crack in the sitting-room floor 
• giving the medicine to the cat 

On the basis of your reading of the extract, tick mark the most appropriate meaning for the given word : 

(i) Infatuated (Para 1} 
• fond
• influenced
• disliked
• addicted 

(ii) Melancholy (Para 2) 
• happy
• sad 
• worried
• disappointed 
(iii) Petrified (Para 6} 
• horrified
• motionless
• stunned
• anxious 
(iv) Gravity (Para 7} 
• mischievous
• seriousness
• joyfulness
• greatness 

In pairs, discuss the following aspects of the story, and then have a class discussion.

1. Tom was not really ill but he pretended to be ill
2. Usually, he made a lot of fuss to take Aunt Polly’s medicines, but this time he took the medicines quietly.
3. His aunt was worried because he was not his usual self: instead, he showed an unusual interest in the medicine.
4. Aunt Polly could read Tom’s thoughts.
5. Aunt Polly loved Tom Sawyer.