A Letter to God
(G. L. Fuentes)
Read the following passages and Ans. the Q.s that follow:
1. THE house — the only one in the entire valley — sat on the crest of a low hill. From this height one could see the river and the field of ripe corn dotted with the flowers that always promised a good harvest. The only thing the earth needed was a downpour or at least a shower. Throughout the morning Lencho - who knew his fields intimately - had done nothing else but see the sky towards the north-east.
“Now we’re really going to get some water, woman.”
The woman who was preparing supper, replied, “Yes, God willing”. The older boys were working in the field, while the smaller ones were playing near the house until the woman called to them all, “Come for dinner”. It was during the meal that, just as Lencho had predicted, big drops of rain began to fall. In the north-east huge mountains of clouds could be seen approaching. The air was fresh and sweet. The man went out for no other reason than to have the pleasure of feeling the rain on his body, and when he returned he exclaimed, ‘‘These aren’t raindrops falling from the sky, they are new coins. The big drops are ten cent pieces and the little ones are fives.’’
Q.s:
01. Where was the house situated?
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02. Who is the woman?
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03. From where Lecho was going to get some water? How?
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04. Who was the owner of the house and the fields?
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05. Who was preparing the supper?
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06. How did Lencho feel then?
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07. What did he wish throughout the morning?
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08. Write the meaning of ‘entire’ and ‘downpour’.
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09. What are the rain drops compared?
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10. What do you meant by supper?
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11. What could you see from the house?
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12. What happened at mealtime?
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13. Why did the earth need a downpour?
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14. What had Lencho predicted?
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15. What were the older and the smaller boys doing?
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16. What is the name of the lesson and the author?
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17. What did Lencho know about his fields?
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18. When did it begin to rain heavily?
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19. Pick out words from the passage, which mean ‘foretold’ and ‘very big’.
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20. Which raindrop did he considers as ten cent and five cents coins?
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21. Who called the raindrops a “New coins”?
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2. With a satisfied expression he regarded the field of ripe corn with its flowers, draped in a curtain of rain. But suddenly a strong wind began to blow and along with the rain very large hailstones began to fall. These truly did resemble new silver coins. The boys, exposing themselves to the rain, ran out to collect the frozen pearls.
‘‘It’s really getting bad now,’’ exclaimed the man. “I hope it passes quickly.” It did not pass quickly. For an hour the hail rained on the house, the garden, the hillside, the cornfield, on the whole valley. The field was white, as if covered with salt.
Not a leaf remained on the trees. The corn was totally destroyed. The flowers were gone from the plants. Lencho’s soul was filled with sadness.
Q.s:
01) Who is ‘he’ in these lines?
02) Who is ‘he and what satisfied it?
03) What was getting bad?
04) What did the person feel to see his crop destroyed?
05) What did he feel when it began to rain?
06) What does the writer mean by silver coins?
07) What did the boys do?
08) What do you mean by frozen pearls’?
09) How was his fear confirmed?
10) Why did he feel so?
11) How did he regard the field of ripe corn its flowers?
12) Why was Lecho sad?
13) How do you know that the cornfield destroyed?
14) What was the field comparing here?
15) Find the words from the passage, which means same as ‘contented’, ‘dressed’, and ‘look like’.
3. When the storm had passed, he stood in the middle of the field and said to his sons, “A plague of locusts would have left more than this. The hail has left nothing. This year we will have no corn.’’
That night was a sorrowful one.
“All our work, for nothing.”
‘‘There’s no one who can help us.”
“We’ll all go hungry this year.”
But in the hearts of all who lived in that solitary house in the middle of the valley, there was a single hope: help from God.
“Don’t be so upset, even though this seems like a total loss. Remember, no one dies of hunger.”
Q.s:
01) Who is ‘he’ in the above lines?
02) Who said, ‘Don’t be upset’?
03) What did his family hope from God?
04) What did the speaker mean by “All our work, for nothing”?
05) What did the people have in common?
06) What was their belief?
07) What loss had they suffered?
08) Why was the night very sorrowful to him?
09) Where was he stood and what did he say?
10) What is the name of lesson?
4. “That’s what they say: no one dies of hunger.” All through the night, Lencho thought only of his one hope: the help of God, whose eyes, as he had been instructed, see everything, even what is deep in one’s conscience. Lencho was an ox of a man, working like an animal in the fields, but still he knew how to write. The following Sunday, at daybreak, he began to write a letter which he himself would carry to town and place in the mail.
It was nothing less than a letter to God.
Q.s:
01) What was Lencho’s problem?
02) What was the main fear of Lencho’s family?
03) What had Le4cho learnt about God?
04) What was only one hope of Lencho?
05) Pick out the word from the passage which mean ‘conscience’ and ‘only’.
5. “God,” he wrote, “if you don’t help me, my family and I will go hungry this year. I need a hundred pesos in order to sow my field again and to live until the crop comes, because the hailstorm....”
He wrote ‘To God’ on the envelope, put the letter inside and, still troubled, went to town. At the post office, he placed a stamp on the letter and dropped it into the mailbox.
One of the employees, who was a postman and also helped at the post office, went to his boss laughing heartily and showed him the letter to God. Never in his career as a postman had he known that address. The postmaster — a fat, amiable fellow — also broke out laughing, but almost immediately he turned serious and, tapping the letter on his desk, commented, “What faith! I wish I had the faith of the man who wrote this letter. Starting up a correspondence with God!”
Q.s:
01) Who write a letter of God?
02) Who is the writer?
03) Who receive the Lencho’s letter?
04) Whom did he take the letter to?
05) How did the postman react to see the letter?
06) What did he write in his letter?
07) What help did he wont?
08) What did the postmaster wish?
09) Why did he so sad?
10) Why did the postman go to his boss laughing heartily?
11) Why did the postmaster grow serious so soon?
12) Why would his family go hungry?
13) Why was the post master surprise?
14) For what purpose did he ask for help?
15) To whom did he write?
16) Which word in the passage means “ cheerfully’, gentle’ immediately’. And ‘good tempered’.
6. , “What faith! I wish I had the faith of the man who wrote this letter. Starting up a correspondence with God!”
So, in order not to shake the writer’s faith in God, the postmaster came up with an idea: Ans. the letter. But when he opened it, it was evident that to Ans. it he needed something more than goodwill, ink and paper. But he stuck to his resolution: he asked for money from his employees, he himself gave part of his salary, and several friends of his were obliged to give something ‘for an act of charity’.
Q.s:
01) What was postmaster’s new idea?
02) What did the postmaster do to send his reply to the letter?
03) What made the postmaster laugh?
04) What did the postmaster decide of do?
05) What is ‘something more’ referred to here?
06) Who else was laughing?
07) Why was the postmaster surprised to read the strange letter?
08) Why did the postmaster turn serious immediately?
09) Why did the take this decision?
10) How did the postmaster express his admiration?
11) How was his resolution carried out?
12) Find a word in the passage, which means same as ‘clear’ ‘determination’ and ‘thankful’.
7. It was impossible for him to gather together the hundred pesos, so he was able to send the farmer only a little more than half. He put the money in an envelope addressed to Lencho and with it a letter containing only a single word as a signature: God.
The following Sunday Lencho came a bit earlier than usual to ask if there was a letter for him. It was the postman himself who handed the letter to him while the postmaster, experiencing the contentment of a man who has performed a good deed, looked on from his office.
Lencho showed not the slightest surprise on seeing the money; such was his confidence — but he became angry when he counted the money. God could not have made a mistake, nor could he have denied Lencho what he had requested.
Q.s:
01) What was impossible for him to do?
02) What did he do to send the reply of Lencho’s letter?
03) What kind of faith did Lencho have in God?
04) What was he confident of?
05) What were the two thought that struck him?
06) What was strange about ‘the letter’?
07) What is ‘something more’ a reference to?
08) What did the postmaster decide to do and why?
09) What ‘act of charity’ did the postmaster perform?
10) Why did Lencho reach the post office a bit early?
11) Why was Lencho not surprised?
12) Why did he become angry when he opened the envelope?
13) How did the postmaster carry out his resolution?
14) To whom does the pronoun “him” refer?
15) Which word in the passage mean ‘satisfaction’, ’act and ‘refuse.
8. Immediately, Lencho went up to the window to ask for paper and ink. On the public writing-table, he started to write, with much wrinkling of his brow, caused by the effort he had to make to express his ideas. When he finished, he went to the window to buy a stamp which he licked and then affixed to the envelope with a blow of his fist. The moment the letter fell into the mailbox the postmaster went to open it. It said: “God: Of the money that I asked for, only seventy pesos reached me. Send me the rest, since I need it very much. But don’t send it to me through the mail because the post office employees are a bunch of crooks. Lencho.”
Q.s:
01. Why did Lencho go to the window?
02. What did he do there?
03. What did the Lencho do on writing table?
04. What did he write in the letter?
05. was the employees of post office bunch of crooks/
06. What did he tell to the employees of the post office?
Q. 1: What did Lencho hope for?
Ans.: Lencho hoped for rains; because the crop in his field needed rains.
Q. 2: Why did Lencho say the raindrops were like ‘new coins’?
Ans.: As raindrops would have helped in getting a better harvest, resulting in more prosperity, so Lencho compared them with new coins.
Q. 3: How did the rain change? What happened to Lencho’s fields?
Ans.: The rain changed to hailstorm. All the crop in the field was destroyed.
Q. 4: What were Lencho’s feelings when the hail stopped?
Ans.: After the destruction caused by hail, Lencho was shattered. He could see a bleak future for him and his family. He was worried about lack of food for the coming year.
Q. 5: Who or what did Lencho have faith in? What did he do?
Ans.: Lencho had faith in God. He believed that God could see everything and would help him out. Lencho wrote a letter to the God, explained his situation and asked for some money from God.
Q. 6: Who read the letter?
Ans.: The postmaster read the letter.
Q. 7: What did the postmaster do then?
Ans.: Postmaster was deeply touched by Lencho’s faith in the God. The postmaster asked his colleagues to contribute some money so that they could send that to Lencho.
Q. 8: Who does Lencho have complete faith in? Which sentences in the story tell you this?
Ans.: The following sentences explain Lencho’s faith in the God, “But in the hearts of all who lived in that solitary house in the middle of the valley, there was a single hope: help from God. “Don’t be so upset, even though this seems like a total loss. Remember, no one dies of hunger.”
Q. 9: Why does the postmaster send money to Lencho? Why does he sign the letter ‘God’?
Ans.: Postmaster was moved by Lencho’s complete faith in the God. So, he decided to send money to Lencho. Moreover, the postmaster did not want to shake Lencho’s faith in God. So, he signed the letter ‘God’. It was a good ploy to convey a message that God had himself written the letter.
Q. 10: Did Lencho try to find out who had sent the money to him? Why/Why not?
Ans.: As Lencho had complete faith in God, so he did not try to find out the actual sender of money.
Q. 11: Who does Lencho think has taken the rest of the money? What is the irony in the situation?
Ans.: Lencho had all his doubts on people working in the post office. The irony of the situation is the finger pointing on those who had tried to help out Lencho. In real life also we come across such situations. Many a time you would have tried helping someone and he may get a wrong message.
Q. 12: Was Lencho surprised to find a letter for him with money in it?
Ans.: Lencho was not surprised to get the money.
Q. 13: What made him angry?
Ans.: The fact that he received half the amount he had requested for, made him angry.
Q. 14: Are there people like Lencho in the real world? What kind of a person would you say he is? You may select appropriate words from the following list to Ans. the Q..
Greedy, naïve, stupid, ungrateful, selfish, comical, unQ.ing
Ans.: In the real world it is almost impossible to find people, like Lencho. Lencho seems to be naïve and unQ.ing. Naïve in the sense that he doesn’t even bother to think about who sent the money or if God would actually send the money. Probably his naiveté comes from his unQ.ing belief in the God.
Q. 15: There are two kinds of conflict in the story: between humans and nature, and between humans themselves. How are these conflicts illustrated?
Ans.: In the initial part of the story the episode of rainfall turning into a hailstorm shows the conflict between man and nature. When it is a rainfall the man is very happy dreaming about happy days ahead. But once the rain turns into hail the man is ruing the happening of hailstorm. The way Lencho is feeling sad and gloomy after the storm appropriately projects the conflict of the nature and the man. In the later part of the story when Lencho blames post office people for stealing part of the money then it is showing the conflict between humans. Although nothing is written what happened after that, but anybody can imagine the mental situation when postmaster read the letter.
There are different names in different parts of the world for storms, depending on their nature. Can you match the names in the box with their descriptions below, and fill in the blanks?
gale, whirlwind, cyclone, hurricane, tornado, typhoon
1. A violent tropical storm in which strong winds move in a circle: __ __ c __ __ __ An extremely strong wind : __ a __ __
2. A violent tropical storm with very strong winds : __ p __
3. A violent storm whose centre is a cloud in the shape of a funnel: __ __ n __ __
4. A violent storm with very strong winds, especially in the western Atlantic Ocean: __ __ r __ __
5. A very strong wind that moves very fast in a spinning movement and causes a lot of damage: __ __ l __ __
Ans.: | |||||
1 | Cyclone | 2 | Gale | 3 | Typhoon |
4 | Tornado | 5 | Hurricane | 6 | Whirlwind |
Long Answer
Ch 01. Letter to God
(Important Long Questions )
Q. 1 Write the character sketch of Lencho.
OR
Write the story of Lencho’s fate in God.
OR
Why did Lencho write a letter to God and why did he wrote it second time?
Ans. Lencho was a hard working farmer. He lived with his family in the house at the top of a low hill. He was fully depend on his harvesting. Once his crop was very well he wished for good money. One day a hailstorm destroyed his harvest totally. There was no one to help him in the valley.
He had full faith in God. He believed that God would not let them die, of hunger. He wrote a letter to god for hundred pesos, to live till the next harvest and posted it.
The postmaster gets his letter through his employees. He laughed to see the address and become impressed by the Lencho’s faith. He decides to keeps his faith. He understood that farmer need money badly. He started contributing money through his friends and employees. He also himself gave a part of his salary. He was able to collect only seventy pesos after his all strength and sent it to Lencho.
When Lencho received it he got angry. He thinks that God could not make such a mistake to send the money. He though that employees of post office had taken rest of his money. He wrote another letter to God and asked God to send the rest money urgently. He has also requests not to send it through the post because the employees of the post office are a bunch of crooks.
Q.2 Write the character sketch of Post Master.
Ans. The Postmaster was a fat man and amiable person. He was fun loving, when he saw the letter of Lencho. He laughs at him. After laughing he took it seriously. He decides to Ans. the letter. He keeps the writers faith. He was a generous man. He knows that farmer need money badly. He contributed money through his friends and employees. He also himself gave a part of his salary. He was able to collect only seventy pesos after his all strength.
He posted the money to Lencho with as letter signed only God. Lencho received it and wrote again to God and said the employees of post office are bunch of crooks they have his thirty pesos.
Q.3 Suppose you are Lencho then write a letter to God for help?
Ans.
The House
-------, Valley
Low hill Moscow
12th March -------
Dear God
I am Lencho a poor farmer live with my family nothing is hidden from you. All my crops have been completely destroyed by hails storm. I have no money to sow again or feed my family. I an afraid they would go hungry this year.
I cannot look up to any body else in this house of cries. I firmly believe that you alone could help me. If you did not help my family and me I will go hungry this year. I need a hundred pesos in order to sow my field again to until the crop comes.
Kindly send me a hundred pesos with kind regards and full hopes
Yours truly,
Lencho.
Q. 4 How the Lencho writes his second d letter to God write a format of the letter?
Ans.
The House
-------, Valley
Low hill Moscow
12th March -------
Dear God,
I am grateful to your great help. I have only hope from you. You have sent me some money. I have requested you for hundred pesos in previous letter.
I and sure that you might have sent the full amount. But the post office employees might have tasked some money out. Please send me rest amount as earliest as possible,. But please don’t sent the money through the post because the employees of post office are bunch of crooks they have 30 pesos already
Thanking You
Yours truly,
Lencho
HOT
Q. How do you think the postmaster felt when Lencho called the post office employees 'a bunch of crooks'? Do you think he would have helped someone else after this incident ? Explain why or why not?
By
Om Jitender Singh Tomar
Ans. After reading the second letter of the Lencho the postmaster feels very annoyed because he thinks that his all the efforts of the collecting money goes worthless, so that he feel annoyed and think never help such type of a person after that.
But the postmaster was a nice person with good habits and friends He thought that most of the persons are corrupt, The Lencho is not wrong, he is right on his way so I will send him the rest of money and I promise that I will help again if somebody came for help.
By
Om Jitender Singh Tomar
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