Packing Summary | English Literature for Grade 9 PDF Download

Summary

• 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. The lies were able to complete the packing at 10.05 p.m.
• George and Harris 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 by 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.

Summary (2) 

• 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 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.