Page 1 - Microsoft Word - LESSON NOTES -A ROADSIDE STAND

THE ROADSIDE STAND-ROBERT FROST

The little house was out with a little…….withering faint.

Someone from among the village folk had a shack beside a highway that ran to a city nearby.
The man extended his shack to the front to open a make-shift counter to sell his farm items
like berries or its squash. It was a small entrepreneurial venture to make some little money to
meet his needs. Caravans passed along the highway, but few stopped to buy anything from
him. In fact, no one evinced any interest in his items, even avoiding to cast a glance towards
it. Even a miniscule fraction of the money the city dwellers were awash with eluded the shack-
owner. He vainly looked at the passers-by, with eyes seeking attention. His rudimentary
counter didn’t merit any traveler’s curiosity.

The polished traffic ……………………. (this crossly) and go along

No doubt, the traveller’s belonged to the well-to-do class. The glitz and glamour they are used
to was singularly lacking in the way-side counter. Seldom did they look at it. If ever they did,
it was more to express disgust at the poorly painted and poorly displayed North-South
direction board. Clearly, they remained aloof.

The humble farmer’s soliciting eyes had little impact on them.
The farmer offered wild berries kept in antique-looking jars, the freshly extracted juice kept
in not-so-enticing containers. The city folks passing past the humble counter looked joyfully
at the rocks and mountains that stood in the backdrop, but felt it below their status to stop
over to buy such fresh produce from the lowly grower’s farm. Their wealth had made them
blind to such humble, but priceless offering coming straight from the fields.

The hurt to the scenery ………………… said to be keeping from us

The ramshackle sack stands as a blot against the beautiful backdrop of greenery and the
distant mountains. For the bloated travelers, the shack is a spoiler of the landscape, a
grotesque imposition. They avoid looking at the counter, unmindful of the fervent desire of
the humble villager’s struggle to fight the hardships of life with a tiny portion of the cash from
the travelers’ over-flowing wallets. The indifference of the wealthy city folks is clearly
disgusting. The political power is clearly tilted in favour of the city-dwellers.

It is in the news that ……………………… night the ancient way

A new relocation plan for these poor villagers is in the offing. In the pretence of giving them
the comforts of urban life, these simple folks will be forcefully uprooted from their land and
made to live inside the urban limits, beside the theatres, and malls. No one bothers to take
their consent, nor to study how disoriented the village folks will feel in their new habitats. By
sweat-talking the gullible rural folks, the land sharks will fleece them of their ancestral lands,
and condemn them to live in the urban centers. Such trickery will never be called to account,
and the villagers will painfully struggle to adjust to the new ways of earning a living.