Class 8 English Chapter 10: The Cherry Tree

A boy with a bunch of cherries

The story opens with Rakesh at six, walking home from the Mussoorie bazaar and eating cherries. They were a little sweet and a little sour, small and bright red, and they had come all the way from the Kashmir Valley. He had paid fifty paise for the bunch. The walk took about half an hour, and by the time he reached the cottage only three were left.

Where he lived

The setting matters to everything that follows. In the Himalayan foothills the soil is stony, and dry cold winds stop most plants from reaching their usual size. There are not many fruit trees at all. On the more sheltered slopes there are forests of oak and deodar, which are hardy enough for the conditions.

Two households

Rakesh lives with his grandfather in a little cottage on the edge of Mussoorie, just where the forest begins. His father and mother are in a village fifty miles off, raising maize, rice and barley on narrow terraces cut into the lower slopes. The reason he is not with them is simple. Their village has no school, and his parents wanted him in one.

Three cherries left

Have a cherry, Grandfather, Rakesh says as soon as he sees him in the garden. Grandfather takes one and Rakesh promptly eats the other two. That one word, promptly, tells us how much he wanted them, and also that he offered first anyway.

Making one cherry last

The last seed stays in his mouth a while. He rolls it about on his tongue until every bit of the tang is gone, tang being a strong, sharp taste. Then he lays it on his palm and studies it. A six-year-old who studies a seed is already halfway to planting one.

Are cherry seeds lucky?

Of course, says Grandfather. Then I’ll keep it, says Rakesh, and that is when the answer comes. Nothing kept away is lucky, his grandfather tells him; luck has to be put to some use. So what can a boy do with a seed? Plant it.

What the advice really says

Grandfather does not argue about whether seeds are lucky. He changes the question instead. Luck, in his version, is not a thing you own but a thing you act on, and a seed in a pocket is simply a pebble. The reply is also a piece of teaching disguised as a throwaway line, which is how he talks all through the story.

Not in the mustard bed

Rakesh finds a small space and begins digging up a flowerbed. Hey, not there, says Grandfather, because mustard has been sown in that one. He sends the boy to a shady corner instead, where the seed will not be disturbed. Even the planting is being taught rather than done for him.

How the seed went in

The earth in that corner was soft and yielding, meaning it gave way under pressure, so no digging was needed at all. He pushed the seed down with a thumb and the soil took it. Then came lunch, then cricket with his friends, and the seed went clean out of his head.

Winter in the hills

The garden turned dry and bare, and a cold wind off the snows made its whoo-whoo-whoo among the deodars. Evening after evening the two of them sat over a charcoal fire. Grandfather’s stories ran to people who turned into animals, ghosts that lived in trees, beans that jumped and stones that wept.

Reading the newspaper aloud

Rakesh read aloud from the newspaper in return, the older man’s eyesight being weak. The newspaper bored him, particularly straight after the stories, and his grandfather wanted every item of news in it. It is a small exchange and a fair one, and it tells us a great deal about the household.

How they knew it was spring

The season announced itself overhead. The wild duck went north again, towards Siberia. Out early to chop wood and light a fire, Rakesh would catch the V-shaped formation streaming above him. The birds called clearly in that thin mountain air.

The twig that was rooted

One morning something that looked like a twig turned out, when he reached for it, to be firmly rooted. He stared, then went running for his grandfather. Dada, come and look, he called: the cherry tree has come up. Grandfather had forgotten it entirely and had to ask which cherry tree.

Four inches high

Rakesh dropped onto his haunches, squatting on his feet with his legs bent, and his grandfather folded himself almost double to look. The tree stood about four inches tall. Grandfather agreed that it was a cherry tree, and told him to water it now and then.

Water, and pebbles

Rakesh ran indoors and came back with a whole bucket. Don’t drown it, said Grandfather. So he gave it a sprinkling instead, and then circled it with pebbles. What are the pebbles for, his grandfather asked. For privacy, said Rakesh.

Watching a thing grow

Every morning he checked it, and every morning it seemed no bigger. So he gave up proper looking and took to glancing sideways instead. A fortnight later he allowed himself a real look, and found an extra inch of tree.

The first monsoon

The rains came early that year, and Rakesh plodded to school and back in a raincoat and chappals. Ferns broke out of tree trunks and odd lilies pushed up through long grass. Between showers the trees went on dripping, while mist curled up out of the valley. That was the season the cherry tree put on its growth.

The goat

At about two feet a goat got in and stripped it, leaving the main stem and two thin branches. Never mind, his grandfather said to the upset boy. It would grow again, cherry trees being tough. That is the first of several times the tree is written off and does not die.

Scenario:

A Class 8 group planted coriander seeds in a window box outside their classroom in July. Two students watered it every single day and dug a finger in each morning to look for shoots. By the end of the second week nothing had appeared and they declared the seeds dead. The box was pushed to one end of the sill and forgotten over the long weekend. On the Tuesday the whole box was green. The gardener told them the digging had been disturbing the seeds, and that the rain over the weekend had done the watering.

Analysis:

The two students made Rakesh’s mistake and then had Rakesh’s luck. His seed also went in and was then entirely forgotten, through a whole winter, while he had lunch and played cricket. What brought it up was time and the season, not attention. The digging is the part worth noticing, because it is the one thing that actively did harm. Grandfather’s two instructions in the story guard against exactly this. Plant it where it will not be disturbed, and water it now and then rather than drowning it. Rakesh even works out the watching problem for himself: he stops looking at the tree properly, because looking at it every morning made it seem to grow slower than it was.

Activity:

Plant any seed, write the date, and record one line a week for six weeks without digging.

Title:

A seed diary

Safety:

Wash your hands after handling soil.

What You Notice:

The slow weeks look like failure while you are in them, which is exactly why Rakesh stopped looking at his tree.

Ruskin Bond has lived near Mussoorie for most of his life, and the hillside in this story is the one outside his own window. Many of his stories are set in exactly this landscape.

A deodar is a Himalayan cedar and can live for several hundred years. When Grandfather is later called older than some of the oak trees, the comparison is a generous one.

Cherry trees grown from a seed often give sour fruit, because the seed does not carry the parent tree’s qualities. Orchards usually graft instead, which is why Rakesh’s first cherries disappoint him.

Grandfather’s rule about luck — Put it to use, not away — Nothing kept in a pocket was ever lucky.

Why the foothills have few fruit trees — Stony soil, dry cold wind — And oak and deodar only where it is sheltered.

The scythe

New leaves appeared towards the end of the rainy season. Then a woman came scrambling down the hillside to cut grass, her scythe swishing through foliage made heavy by the monsoon. The young tree was inside it, and she made no attempt to go round. One sweep finished the job, and the tree lay in two pieces. A scythe is a long curved blade on a long handle, and it was never aimed at the tree at all.

After the scythe

Grandfather went after the woman and scolded her when he saw it, though nothing could be mended by then. Maybe it will die now, Rakesh said. Maybe, said his grandfather. That single word is the most honest thing he says in the story, because he will not promise the boy anything he cannot deliver.

No intention of dying

The next line turns everything round. The tree had no intention of dying. Come the next summer it had pushed out several new shoots, each carrying tender green leaves. The sentence treats the tree as something with a will of its own, which is how Rakesh has thought about it all along.

Rakesh at eight

He had grown too. He was eight by then, a sturdy boy, curly black hair, eyes so dark his grandfather called them blackberry eyes. The story keeps the two of them in step like this throughout, giving the boy’s age and the tree’s height in the same breath.

A monsoon in the village

He spent that monsoon at his own village, helping his parents through the ploughing, the planting and the sowing. He returned at the end of the rains thinner and stronger, to a tree a whole foot taller. It reached his chest now.

Watering in the rain

Even when there was rain, Rakesh would sometimes water the tree. The story gives his reason in seven words: he wanted it to know that he was there. It is the clearest statement in the whole story of what the tree has become to him.

The first visitor

A bright green praying-mantis turned up one day on a branch, peering at him out of bulging eyes. He left it where it was, and the story names it the tree’s first visitor. A tree with visitors is a tree that has joined the world around it.

The second visitor

Next came a hairy caterpillar, which set about eating the leaves. Rakesh picked it off at once and put it down on a pile of dry leaves, with an instruction: come back when you’re a butterfly. He protects the tree and spares the caterpillar in the same movement, which is a fair description of the boy.

An early winter

That year the cold arrived ahead of time. The tree bent low under the weight of snow, and field-mice moved into the cottage roof for shelter. With the valley road blocked there was no newspaper for days. This made Grandfather quite grumpy, and his stories began to have unhappy endings.

The first blossom

In February Rakesh turned nine, and the tree was four but almost as tall as he was. The sun came out one morning and Grandfather went into the garden to let some warmth get into his bones. He stopped in front of the tree, stared, then shouted for Rakesh to come quickly, before it fell. A pale pink blossom had opened at a branch end.

As though it were a miracle

The story says the two of them gazed at the tree as though it had performed a miracle. Nothing unusual has happened: a four-year-old cherry tree has flowered, which is what cherry trees do. The miracle is in the watching, and in the four years of history the two of them bring to a single pink flower.

Overtaking them both

More blossoms came the following year. Then, quite suddenly, the tree stood higher than Rakesh, at less than half his age, and before long higher than Grandfather too, who was older than some of the oaks. Rakesh had not stood still either. He could run, jump and climb with any boy, and he was reading a great deal.

Bees and birds

Bees arrived for the nectar. Tiny birds pecked at the flowers and snapped them off. The tree simply went on blossoming all through the spring, and the story settles the contest in six words: there were always more blossoms than birds.

The first cherries

Small cherries appeared that summer. Rakesh tried one and spat it straight out: far too sour. They’ll be better next year, said Grandfather. The birds were of a different opinion altogether, and the bulbuls and scarlet minivets feasted on them.

Grandfather under the tree

On an afternoon so warm that even the bees looked sleepy, Grandfather was in none of his usual places. From the bedroom window Rakesh spotted him instead, reclining in a cane chair beneath the cherry tree. Just the right amount of shade here, the old man said, and I like looking at the leaves.

The leaves that dance

Pretty leaves, Rakesh agreed, and always ready to dance if a breeze comes. The tree a six-year-old planted is now giving shade to the man who told him to plant it. The story never points this out, which is why it lands.

Evening under the tree

Rakesh stretched out on the grass under it and looked up through the leaves at a great blue sky. On his side, he could watch the mountains striding off into cloud. He was still there when the evening shadows crept across the garden, and the two of them waited in silence until the stars came out.

What makes it special

There are so many trees in the forest, Rakesh said. What’s so special about this tree? Grandfather’s answer is four words long: we planted it ourselves. Then Rakesh touched the smooth bark. He ran his hand along the trunk and put a finger to the tip of a leaf. And he wondered aloud whether this is what it feels like to be God.

Scenario:

A school planted twenty saplings along its boundary wall on Van Mahotsav day. Nineteen were planted by visitors. One was planted by the Class 8 students themselves, who dug the pit and fetched the water. Over the next two years a cow broke two of the nineteen. Eleven more dried out in May, because nobody had been given the job of watering them. The Class 8 sapling was watered through both summers by a rota the students kept themselves. By the third year it was the tallest tree on the wall. A teacher asked the class why theirs had lived.

Analysis:

The honest answer is the one Grandfather gives Rakesh, and it is not about gardening. What is special about this one tree, the boy asks, when the forest is full of them? We planted it ourselves. That is what separates the Class 8 sapling from the nineteen. The planting created somebody who would notice the tree in May. Noticing is most of what a young tree needs. Rakesh does the same things across four years without being told. He waters in the rain so the tree knows he is there. He moves a caterpillar off the leaves and puts pebbles round the stem. None of it is expert, and all of it is attention.

Activity:

Write four lines about something you look after because you made or started it yourself.

Title:

Two timelines, one page

Safety:

No safety concerns.

What You Notice:

The tree overtakes Rakesh while being less than half his age, which is the comparison the story keeps making.

A cherry tree really can recover from being cut back hard, because buds held below the cut can start new shoots. Grandfather’s remark that cherry trees are tough is sound gardening as well as comfort.

A praying-mantis is a hunter. Letting it stay on the branch was better for the tree than Rakesh knew, because a mantis eats the insects that eat leaves.

A tree grown from a seed can fruit sourly for its first year or two and improve later, which is exactly what Grandfather predicts when he says they will be better next year.

The four blows the tree took — Goat, scythe, caterpillar, snow — And it grew back after every one of them.

Why the tree is special — We planted it ourselves — Grandfather’s whole answer, in four words.

The simple past

This is the ordinary past form, used for one finished action. Rakesh bought the cherries. Rakesh and Grandfather gazed at the tree. Each one reports a thing that happened and then was over. Most of this story is told in the simple past, which is why it reads so plainly.

The past progressive

Was or were, plus the -ing form. Rakesh was looking for Grandfather without finding him. The progressive tells us the looking was still going on, which is exactly what the sentence needs, because he is interrupted by what he sees out of the window.

The past perfect

Had, plus the past participle. The two of them gazed at the tree as if it had performed a miracle. The gazing and the miracle both lie in the past, but the miracle came first. The past perfect is how English keeps two past events in the right order.

Two tenses in one sentence

That last example carries both the simple past and the past perfect, side by side. Gazed is simple past, and had performed is past perfect. A reader never notices the machinery, and the order of events arrives perfectly clear, which is what the tenses are for.

Choosing between them

Ask what the sentence has to say. One finished thing takes the simple past. Something still going on at the time takes the progressive. Something that had already happened before another past event takes the perfect. The question is never how long ago it was.

A worked paragraph

I was sitting with my grandparents in the garden. As we talked, I realised how much wisdom they had imparted over the years. While I was listening to their stories, I remembered the times we had spent planting flowers. By the time I left, the sun had set, and I felt grateful.

What punctuation is for

Punctuation means the symbols used in writing to make meaning clear and to separate sentences and their parts. It is not decoration. Proper punctuation keeps the flow of a text and guides a reader through its structure, which is why the same words can be clear or confusing depending on the marks.

Marks that end a sentence

A full stop ends a statement: she went to the store. A question mark ends a direct question: where are you going? An exclamation mark marks strong feeling or emphasis: watch out. The story uses all three, often inside the same short conversation.

The comma

A comma separates items in a list, and it also separates clauses and phrases inside a sentence. We bought apples, oranges and bananas is the list use. When Grandfather realised what she had done, he followed her is the clause use, and the comma is doing real work in it.

The semicolon

A semicolon connects two closely related clauses that could each stand alone. She likes reading; he prefers writing. The story has one: Grandfather scolded the woman, and then a semicolon, and then the damage could not be repaired. A full stop would have been colder; a comma would have been wrong.

The colon

A colon introduces a list, an explanation or an elaboration. He had one goal: win the race. The story uses one at its sharpest moment, when the woman does not try to avoid the tree, and then a colon, and then one sweep. The colon says what follows is the result.

The apostrophe: two jobs

An apostrophe makes contractions, where a letter has been dropped: he’s for he is, they’ll for they will, I’m for I am. It also shows possession: Jagan’s book, the girls’ toys. If the noun already ends in -s, only the apostrophe is added, as in Manas’ car.

Quotation marks and the dash

Quotation marks enclose direct speech or a quotation: she said, I am happy. A dash adds emphasis or separates a related thought: he was late, dash, again. This story is full of both, because so much of it is two people talking.

Capital letters

Capitals go on the names of people and places, such as Priya and India. They go on days, months and festivals: Monday, December, Diwali. And they go on titles used with names, such as Dr Sneha and Mr Patel.

Near-synonyms are not the same word

Chop, slice and mince are all done with a knife, while trim is done with scissors, so trim is the odd one out. Plodded, scrambled and trudged are all hard or slow going, while galloped is fast. Stared, peered and gazed are ways of looking, while pecked is what a bird does with its beak.

Two more groups

Tender, delicate and soft all describe how easily something gives or breaks, while smooth describes a surface, so smooth is the odd one. Growing, blossoming and progressing are things a plant does by itself, while planting is something a person does to it.

Antonyms from the story

Tender and hard. Sturdy and shaky. Narrow and wide. Warmth and coldness. Feasting and fasting. Grumpy and cheerful. Sheltered and unprotected. Special and ordinary. Every one of those first words appears in the story, which is a good reason to learn the pairs together.

Scenario:

A Class 8 monitor put up a notice for a class picnic. It read: Bring the following lunch fruit a water bottle and a cap. Nine students arrived with a packed lunch made of fruit. Four arrived with no lunch at all, having read the word lunch as part of the list of things to bring and assumed it meant a lunch would be provided. The teacher rewrote the notice on the board as: Bring the following: lunch, fruit, a water bottle and a cap. Nobody was confused the next time.

Analysis:

Two marks did all the work in that rewrite, and both of them appear in this chapter. The colon after following introduces the list, which tells a reader that what comes next is the list and not a continuation of the sentence. The commas then separate the items inside it, so lunch and fruit stop being one thing. Neither mark adds a word, and together they remove every reading except the right one. That is what the chapter means when it says punctuation makes meaning clear and guides a reader through the structure of a text.

Activity:

Write a four-item instruction with a colon and commas, then write it again with no marks and compare.

Title:

Three tenses from one event

Safety:

No safety concerns.

What You Notice:

The simple past is almost always the one a story wants, which is why the other two stand out when a writer reaches for them.

The apostrophe is the youngest of the common marks in English and the one most often misplaced. It never makes a plural, which is why a sign reading apple’s for sale is wrong.

A semicolon is the only mark that joins two sentences without a joining word. Ruskin Bond uses one in this story, where Grandfather scolds the woman and nothing can be mended.

English has three ways of speaking about the past and many languages have more. The choice between them is not about how long ago something happened but about how it sits beside other events.

The three past tenses — Did, was doing, had done — One finished action, action going on, action finished first.

Semicolon or colon — Semicolon joins, colon introduces — Two clauses, or a list and an explanation.