The mood created is Suspense.
The themes of the book include morality and womanhood. Cassy commits infanticide not because she wanted to do it but because she had no choice. She was a slave and that meant she did not have the capacity to raise the baby. Despite this, she still made her decision to kill the baby and that shows her 'moral weakness.'
In an attempt to keep her plants from freezing, she left the stove on to keep them warm.
The poem Cherry Tree is about the ecstasy of the poet over a plant which he has seeded eight years ago.It was a seed of cherry tree which took eight years to grow. In the poem, Ruskin Bond expresses his wonder at the nature works hard to survive in difficult conditions against all odds.Eight years ago, the poet planted a cherry seed because he wanted to have a plant of his own. The young poet used to water it daily but he was unaware of the fact that cherry plant needs extra special care to grow into a healthy tree. Inspite of getting any special attention, by the end of May, the poet saw the small cherry sapling coming out of the ground. It was a very small plant, young and fragile, vulnerable to all kinds of external dangers.
