Summary of Packing Class 9 Beehive

Answer

Jerome, Harris, and George are three friends who are about to set out on a journey. The story begins with the important task of packing stuff for this journey. Jerome, the narrator, overestimates his packing skills and tells his friends to let him handle it all by himself. However, his real intention is to make George and Harris do the packing under his supervision and guidance. But his friends take his advice seriously and to his great shock, stretch themselves comfortably, leaving him with all the running around. Though irritated with their attitude, Jerome straight away gets busy with packing. After a long-drawn packing session, he finally straps up the bag.

Both his friends watch him quietly and when he is done with packing, Harris declares that the shoes have been left unpacked. The bag has to be reopened again to accommodate the shoes. An irritated Jerome is just done with packing the shoes when he is reminded of his toothbrush.

Unsure about having packed his toothbrush, Jerome has to empty the bag and hunt through all its contents to locate the brush. After a lot of effort, he finds the brush in one of the boots! Anyhow the bag is packed again.
The next query comes from George regarding the soap. Jerome is so irritated by this time that he does not even bother about this query and straps up the bag. But, the very next moment he has to unpack it again as he had packed in his spectacles by mistake. Eventually, it is past ten when the packing is finally done.

Keeping in mind the amount of time taken by Jerome to pack the bag, George and Harris decide to pack the hampers themselves and show Jerome the real art of packing. However, they are equally clumsy and break a cup at the very outset. This is followed by squashing a tomato, treading on the butter and smashing the pies by putting heavy things on them. Salt flies all over while they are packing.

After peeling the butter off George’s slipper, they try unsuccessfully to squeeze it into the kettle. They finally scrape it and put it down on the chair. Harris sits on it and the butter gets stuck to his back. Then both these men go about searching for the butter all over the room. Later, George locates it behind Harris’s back and it is packed in the teapot.
Montmorency, their pet dog, contributes his bit to this exercise of packing by sitting on things, climbing into the jam and crushing lemons as though they were rats.

Finally, the packing is done by 12.50 at night. This is followed by a discussion on the ‘wake up’ time and George is so tired that he sleeps off even before the time is decided upon. Jerome and Harris decide that 6.30 in the morning would be the right time to get up and then they too go off to sleep.

Answer

• The author and his friends decided to go on holiday. The author thought he was an expert in packing.
• He told his friends, George and Harris that he would do the packing. They at once agreed to his suggestion.
• George put on a pipe and sat in an easy chair. Harris put his legs on a table and lit a cigar. The author had not intended this.
• He was unhappy with himself for having offered to pack. He had thought that Harris and George would pack and he would boss over them.
• When he worked and the people around him relaxed, he was greatly irritated. At the same time, he could not sit still and see others working.
• He enjoyed getting up and supervising their work.
• The narrator started packing. It seemed a longer job than he had thought it was going to be. At last, he finished packing.
• But Harris told him that he had not packed the boots. He opened the bag and packed the boots in.
• Then when he was going to close it, an idea came to him. He was not sure whether he had packed his toothbrush.
• So he unpacked the bag and took everything out but could not find the toothbrush. Then he shook everything one by one.
• At last, he found his toothbrush in a boot. He repacked once more. Now George asked him if he had packed the soap.
• He decided not to do the packing again. But he found that he had packed his tobacco pouch in it. So he reopened the bag and repacked it.
• Then he was able to complete the packing at 10.05 p.m.
• George and Hat are said that they were not satisfied with the packing done by the author.
• So they decided to do it themselves. But they created chaos while packing things.
• They started packing with breaking a cup. Then Harris packed the strawberry jam on top of a tomato and squashed it.
• George trod on the butter. They put things and could not find them when they wanted them.
• They packed the pies at the bottom and put heavy things on top and smashed the pies.
• Harris found butter sticking to the sole of George’s slipper. He got the butter off the slipper and put it on a chair.
• Harris sat on the butter and it stuck to him. They started looking for it all over the room.
• Then suddenly George saw it on the back of Harris. When they finally found it, they packed it in the teapot.
• Their dog increased the confusion. He thought lemons to be rats and chased them. He put his leg in the jam and spoiled it.
• At last, the packing has completed the packing at 12.50 and the three friends went to sleep with the intention of getting up early the next morning.

Answer

Jerome: Jerome is the narrator of the story and the entire gamut of events are depicted from his point of view. He is overconfident and rates his packing skills a bit too high. He is also arrogant and expects his friends to carry out the tedious part of packing while he sits back and passes orders. His friends, however, do not take him seriously and finally, he has to struggle while trying to pack the bag. Jerome is both clumsy and forgetful. He first forgets to pack the shoes and they can’t recall if he has put in his toothbrush or not. He unpacks the bag twice clumsily to accommodate the missing items. When his friends fumble while packing the hamper, he sits at the edge of the table and watches them because now it is his turn to have fun at their expense. However, he is an ordinary boy who ignores the shortcomings of his friends in the same way as he ignores his own.

George and Harris: George and Harris are the friends of the narrator, Jerome. Both of them are as clumsy, ill-organised, forgetful and casual as Jerome. They commit mistakes even while doing ordinary tasks and keep repeating their mistakes. Like Jerome, they too are mistaken about their talent to pack stuff and are over-confident about their performance. They damage or spoil many things like cups, pies, tomatoes, butter and lemons while packing the hamper. Their action amuses the readers, especially when they misplace the butter and search for it all over the place. Somehow, in spite of making a fool of themselves, while packing for the trip, they don’t believe in any blame game and ignore each others’ mistakes.

Montmorency – the pet dog: Montmorency is the pet dog of the three friends – Jerome, George and Harris. He is a pampered pet and knows no restrains on his behaviour. His animal instinct to probe everything creates a nuisance for his masters. He likes to be a part of all the activities going on in the house and gets excited to see the boys packing things. He doesn’t mind being shouted at and does not even respond when they try to move him away from the packed stuff. He is a super energized pet and ’10 amount of scolding dampens his enthusiasm. He may ill-trained temperamental, destructive and meddlesome but he is loved by the readers as much as his masters. His presence in the story makes it more interesting and amusing’.

Answer

लेखक और उसके मित्रों ने छुट्टी पर जाने का निर्णय किया । लेखक सोचता था कि वह सामान पैक करने में विशेषज्ञ है । उसने अपने मित्रों, जॉर्ज और हैरिस से कहा कि पैकिंग वह करेगा । वे एकदम उसके सुझाव को मान गए । जॉर्ज ने पाइप सुलगा लिया और आराम से कुर्सी पर बैठ गया । हैरिस ने अपनी टाँगें मेज़ पर रखीं और सिगार सुलगा लिया । लेखक ने ऐसा नहीं सोचा था । उसे सामान पैक करने की अपनी पेशकश के कारण स्वयं से नाराजगी हुई । उसने सोचा था कि जॉर्ज और हैरिस सामान पैक करेंगे और यह उन पर रोब चलाएगा । जब वह काम करे और उसके आसपास के लोग आराम करें तो उसे बहीं झुंझलाहट होती है । इसके साथ-साथ वह ऐसा भी नहीं कर सकता कि वह चुपचाप बैठा रहे और लोग काम करते रहें । उसे उठकर उनके काम का निरीक्षण करने में बहुत आनंद आता था ।

वर्णनकर्ता ने पैकिंग आरंभ की । जितना उसे लगता था, यह उससे अधिक लंबा काम था । अंतत: उसने पैकिंग समाप्त की । मगर हैरिस ने उसे बताया कि उसने अपने जूते पैक नहीं किए हैं । उसने बैग खोला और जूते अंदर डाले । तब जब वह इसे बँद करने जा रहा था तो उसके दिमाग में एक विचार आया । उसे विश्वास नहीं था कि उसने अपना टुथ-बुश पैक किया है या नहीं । इसलिए उसने बैग को खोला, हर चीज बाहर निकाली, मगर उसे टुथ-ब्रुश नहीं मिला । तब उसने हर चीज को एक –एक करके हिलाया । आखिर उसे अपना टुथ-ब्रुश एक जूते के अंदर मिला । उसने फिर से सामान पैक किया । अब जॉर्ज ने उससे पूछा कि क्या उसने साबुन पैक किया है । उसने फैसला किया कि वह फिर से पैकिंग नहीं करेगा । मगर उसने देखा कि उसने अपनी तंबाकू की थैली अंदर पैक कर दी थी । इसलिए उसने दुबारा बैग खोला और फिर से पैकिंग की । वह 10.05 पर पैकिंग पूरी करने में सफल हुआ ।

जॉर्ज और हैरिस ने कहा कि वे लेखक द्वारा की गई पैकिंग से संतुष्ट नहीं थे । इसलिए उन्होंने यह काम स्वयं करने का फैसला किया । मगर वस्तुओं को पैक करने में उन्होंने उथल-पुथल मचा दी । उन्होंने पैकिंग की शुरूआत एक कप तोड़कर की । तब हैरिस ने स्ट्रॉबरी जैम को एक टमाटर के ऊपर पैक कर दिया और उसे कुचल दिया । जॉर्ज ने मक्खन पर पांव रख दिया । उन्होंने वस्तुएँ इधर-उधर रख दीं और जब उन्हें जरूरत हुई तो वे उन्हें मिली नहीं । उन्होंने खाने की वस्तुएँ नीचे रखकर ऊपर भारी सामान रख दिया और उन्हें कुचल दिया । हैरिस ने देखा कि मक्खन जॉर्ज के स्लीपर के साथ लगा हुआ है । उसने स्लीपर से मक्खन् उतारा और कुर्सी पर रख दिया । हैरिस मक्खन के ऊपर बैठ गया और यह उसके पीछे चिपक गया । उन्होंने इसकी तलाश सारे कमरे में की । तभी अचानक जॉर्ज ने इसे हैरिस के पीछे लगा देखा । जब आखिर यह उन्हें मिल गया तो उन्होंने इसे चाय की केतली में पैक कर दिया। उनके कुत्ते ने उनकी घबराहट को बड़ा दिया । उसने सोचा कि नीबू चूहे हैं और उनका पीछा किया । उसने जैम में टांग डाल दी और उसे खराब कर दिया । आखिर रात को 12.50 पर पैकिंग पूरी हुईं और तीनों मित्र अगले दिन जल्दी उठने का निर्णय करके सो गए ।