2.2 The Midnight Stitch
Complete textbook exercise solutions — Maharashtra State Board (Balbharati), Grade Six English.
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About the chapter
This story is about Denu, a poor cobbler, and his wife Dhania. One night, five little fairies secretly make shoes for Denu while he sleeps. With their help, his work and his home run well again. Denu and Dhania thank the fairies by making new clothes for them.
Key points
- Denu had only one last piece of leather left.
- Every night, the fairies sewed shoes while Denu slept.
- Denu sold the shoes and bought more leather with the money.
- The fairies help the needy, but not the greedy.
- Dhania sewed five pairs of colourful clothes for the fairies.
- Message: we should be grateful to those who help us.
Words to remember
- cobbler – a person who makes and mends shoes
- stitch – a loop of thread made while sewing
- gratitude – a feeling of thankfulness
- needy – poor; in need of help
- greedy – wanting more than one needs
| Professionals | Answer | The work they do |
|---|---|---|
| (i) Architect | (c) | Designs building. |
| (ii) Data scientist | (d) | Analyse data. |
| (iii) Archaeologist | (e) | Studies ancient human history. |
| (iv) Nutritionist | (b) | Plans diet. |
| (v) Animator | (a) | Creates cartoons. |
- (i) Shoes and sandals
- (ii) School bags and handbags
- (iii) Belts
- (iv) Purses and wallets
- (v) Sofa covers and car seat covers
Jackets, mobile covers and footballs are also often made from artificial leather.
- leather (example) — eat, her, ate, tea, heat, hear, real, hat
- chair — chai, air, hair, arc, car, rich
- carpet — car, pet, cart, rate, cape, part, cap, tap, trace
- teacher — tea, each, reach, cheat, heat, ache, hear, race, cheer
- fairy — fair, air, fry, ray, far, if
How the fairies helped Denu: Denu was a poor cobbler. He had only one piece of leather left. One night he cut it and went to bed, worried. In the morning he found a pair of shining new shoes. Five little fairies had sewn them while he slept. This happened night after night. Denu sold the shoes and bought more leather. In this way his work went on.
How he showed his gratitude: Denu and his wife hid behind the door and saw the fairies. Denu called them “wonderful, kind, little fairies”. His wife Dhania sewed five pairs of bright, colourful clothes for them. The fairies wore the clothes happily and danced all night.
This is a personal-response question. Students should write their own answer.
Ideas that may help: clean rivers and lakes; dustbins in every street and no littering; more trees along the roads; clean drinking water in every school; fewer plastic bags; clean toilets; safe playgrounds for children.
(i) My brother plays football every evening.
- Stress My — it is my brother who plays, not someone else’s.
- Stress brother — it is my brother, not my sister.
- Stress football — he plays football, not cricket.
- Stress evening — he plays in the evening, not in the morning.
(ii) We visited the zoo yesterday.
- Stress We — it was we who visited, not they.
- Stress visited — we actually visited; we did not merely plan to.
- Stress zoo — we visited the zoo, not the museum.
- Stress yesterday — we went yesterday, not last week.
Remember: In English we stress the “content” words — nouns, verbs and adjectives. Changing the stress changes the focus of the sentence, even though the words stay the same.
- /ɪ/ as in sit — hit, pin
- /e/ as in pen — men
- /æ/ as in cat — rat, map, mat, cat
- /ʌ/ as in sun — run, sun
- /ɒ/ as in box — pot
- /ɪ/ — fit, lip, win, big, dish
- /e/ — bed, hen, ten, get, desk
- /æ/ — bag, hand, lamp, fan, flag
- /ʌ/ — cup, bus, hut, mud, duck
- /ɒ/ — dog, top, hot, lock, shop
- /ʊ/ — put, book, foot, good, pull