Tuck Everlasting notes

							Tuck Everlasting
By: Natalie Babbitt
Setting: Tree Gap
Genre: Fantasy
Characters:
Mae Tuck: Mae is describe as “a great potato of a woman with a round sensible face and
calm brown eyes.”

Angus Tuck: Married to Mae, cranky old man

Winnie Foster: a young girl, (10) wants to be independent and make her own decisions
because she is sheltered and constantly has someone watching her. She is also naïve,
innocent and afraid of being on her own.

Jesse Tuck: younger son of Mae and Tuck, a young man, shabby clothes, bare feet, etc.

Miles Tuck: older brother of Jesse.


Chapter Summaries-
Prologue: Three things happened:
Mae Tuck went to town to meet her sons
Winnie Foster lost her patience and decided to start thinking about running away
A stranger showed up at Foster’s gate looking for someone but he didn’t say who.

Chapter 1: Describes tree gap, winding around the path the cows take, abruptly moving
around the wood. The first house, is a square cottage (“touch-me-not cottage”) with
perfectly manicured grass and a strong iron gate surrounding it, this is the Foster’s house
and it seems to say “keep moving” The wood had a mysterious and strange feel to it, that
made you want to whisper. The wood belonged to the Foster’s, even though it was easily
accessible and outside the fence no one went into it. Winnie had never been in the
woods, she had never been interested in it. If the cows had made their road through the
wood, the people would have followed and eventually they would have noticed the large
Ash tree and then the small spring at its foot and that would have been disastrous.

Chapter 2: Mae Tuck woke at dawn anxious because her boys would be home the next
day. Tuck has had the dream where they are all in heaven and happy. Mae decides she is
going to take the horse down to the wood to meet them. Mae never goes anywhere
without her music box, it is the one pretty thing she owns. She puts on her bonnet without
a mirror; she isn’t interested in looking in the mirror because her family and herself had
looked exactly the same for years.
Chapter 3: Winnie Foster is sitting by the fence talking to a toad about running away,
she is very cross because she is “tired of being looked at all the time.” She tossed rocks at
the toad, being careful not to hit it of course. Not long after she runs out of stones her
grandmother and mother call to her (“Winifred!”) to the window telling her not to sit on
the ground and to come in out of the heat. She decides she wants to be like the toad, out
on her own making her own decisions and thinks the best way is to run away. Her mother
calls her again and she starts to get up, the toad starts to hop towards the woods.

Chapter 4: A stranger (in a yellow suit) comes up the road from town and pauses at the
gate. Winnie is outside trying to catch fireflies. He addresses Winnie, “Good evening.”
He talks to her sweetly and asks her questions about the house and how long they have
lived there. Winnie starts to explain her family’s history in Tree Gap although she can not
tell him much about the other people who live there. The man is looking for someone but
he doesn’t say who and Winnie suggests he talk to her father. Grandmother comes out the
gate to see who Winnie is talking to and asks who the man is looking for. She dismisses
the man by telling him she doesn’t discuss such things with strangers in the dark. They
hear some music coming from the woods and all turn to look, Grandmother remembers
the music, having heard it before (although Winnie never had). Grandmother thinks it is
fairy music (or elves), Winnie thinks it sounds like a music box, the stranger wants to
know more but Grandmother checked the lock on the gate, and lead Winnie back into the
cottage without explaining anything more.

Chapter 5: Sometime during the night, Winnie had made up her mind; she would not run
away today. She thought she didn’t have anywhere else she wanted to be but also she was
afraid to go off on her own. In the morning she decides to go into the wood, hunting for
the pretty music she had heard the night before. Winnie admires the beauty of the woods
and the creatures she sees along the way. She even saw the toad, although she may not
have seen it if it had not blinked. She wandered, looking and listening to everything,
trying to remember the music she had heard the night before. The woods starts to part a
bit and she sees something move. She stopped and crouched down, she wonders if it is
elves and starts to creep forward. She sees a boy (almost a man) sitting in the clearing,
“thin and sunburned, with a thick mop of curly hair.” She watched him and saw him
move a pile of pebbles and take a drink of water from a hidden spring and then he saw
her and told her to come out from her hiding place. She tells him that it is her wood and
she can come into it whenever she wants. His name is Jesse Tuck and he tells her that he
is 104 years old and then says 17. She asks if he is married, no, she says she is 10 and not
married either. He will not let her drink the water from the spring (they argue) and piles
the rocks back on top of the water. Mae and Miles Tuck appear in the clearing and Mae
announces, “Well here it is, it’s finally happened at last.”

Chapter 6: Winnie was thrown on the Tuck’s horse and taken away very quickly
(kidnapped, and not how she had always imagined it). They came to the edge of the wood
and saw the man in the yellow suit (the stranger) in the road. Mae explains that they are
teaching their little girl to ride and they sped off without Winnie even considering calling
out to the man. Winnie started to cry (from outrage and shock), Mae begs her not to and
says they will return her tomorrow, that they aren’t bad people, which only made her cry
more. Mae, distressed, took out her music box and when the music started Winnie’s sobs
began to slow and she started to calm down, she took it and wound it and realized Mae
couldn’t be that bad if she owned something so lovely. Jesse says they must help them
and he will explain why.

Chapter 7: They started to tell their story, 87 years before, the Tucks had come from the
East and in those days the wood was actually a forest. The plan was to start a farm, when
they came to the end of the trees, they happened on the spring, they each took a drink,
even the horse, except for the cat (the water tasted strange). They found a valley, started
their farm. Jesse had fallen out of a tree, landed on his head, but it handed hurt him at all.
Not long after, the horse had been shot, but the bullet went through him and didn’t kill
him. Tuck was bit by a snake, Jesse had eaten poisonous toad stools, Mae cut herself.
They weren’t getting any older, Miles’ wife left him and took her children because she
had decided that Miles had sold his soul to the devil. Their friends thought the same,
there was talk of witchcraft. They had to leave of course, when they got back to the forest
they found it had changed, there was Tree Gap, they discovered the spring again and
figured out what had happened, the “T” Tuck had carved in the tree was there just as it
had been that day. The cat had died but all the others who had drunk from the spring were
all exactly the same, just like the tree. Tuck shot himself with a shot gun to prove it once
and for all, it knocked him down but there was not a scratch on him. They figured that if
other people figured out about the water it could be really bad for people. They don’t
know how it works, or what the purpose is, it just is. Jesse explains that he was telling the
truth about being 104 years old, but he will always look 17, forever.

Chapter 8: Winnie could not comprehend. Jesse and Miles argue, Jesse believes it is a
great opportunity, allows them to see everything, they have nothing but time. Miles
thinks Jesse needs to take it more seriously and that there is a lot more to it. Mae says
they will take Winnie home with them. Tuck will want to talk it out, make sure Winnie
understands why she can’t tell anyone about their secret. Winnie was not afraid, the
Tuck’s made Winnie feel old, and special. They started off again, eating bread and
cheese, Jesse showing off to Winnie. As they rode on enjoying themselves, none of them
had noticed that the man in the yellow suit had followed them and heard the entire story
and was still following them now with a large smile on his face.

Chapter 9: Miles carried Winnie when she tired; she wore a sunbonnet on Mae’s
insistence to keep from burning too badly in the sun. Finally they were home, Miles and
Jesse rushed toward it as Winnie and Mae slowly rode the horse behind them. Winnie
saw a homely little house, a red barn and a tiny lake. Before they were even at the house
Jesse and Miles were diving into the lake. At first Winnie was shy when he saw Tuck, but
then he smiled, lifted her off the horse and said, “There’s just no words to tell you how
happy I am to see you. It’s the finest thing that’s happened in . . .” (80 years).

Chapter 10: Winnie was used to order, she was unprepared for the Tuck’s cottage, small,
homely and far from orderly, every surface was covered in things. There were only three
rooms, Mae and Tuck had a bedroom and up some steep steps was the loft where the
boys slept when they were home. Mae explains that they make things to sell, she also
tells Winnie the boys aren’t home much. Winnie wants to know where they go and what
they do when they are not at home. Mae tells Winnie that they go many places and do
many things, they get jobs when they can and bring home money when they can. She
says that Jesse is “not so settled with himself.” None of them can stay anywhere for too
long. They’ve been in this cottage for about 20 years and Mae figures they will probably
move on soon because they have been there long enough and if they stayed in one place
too long people might start to wonder about things. Winnie thinks it is sad that they have
to move around and can’t really have any friends. The boys came back up from the pond,
they had gone swimming in their clothes.

Chapter 11: They had flapjacks, bacon, bread, and applesauce for dinner, eating around
the parlor instead of a table and there seemed to be no rules for eating. As she was eating
she realized all of a sudden that she wanted to go home (she suddenly decided they were
crazy, criminals, who had kidnapped her and expected her to sleep in a strange place) and
announced this. Miles offers to take her rowing on the pond, then Jesse insists he will and
finally Tuck announces he will be the one to take Winnie out on the pond. Tuck seems
mysterious, like he is unsure of something. They recall seeing the man in the yellow suit,
Winnie mentions how she knows that man, they wonder if they should worry about this
man and Tuck says they must talk very soon because he is afraid things will start to come
apart very soon.

Chapter 12: As they go out on the pond, Winnie hears a bull frog, Tuck explains it is
feeding time. Tuck talks about the water around him, talks about life, how the water may
look the same every day, but its not, its always moving, always changing. He says that’s
the way it is supposed to be. The row boat bumps into a log, it gets wedged, Tuck says
the boat is stuck, it won’t move without their help, he says that is what they are, stuck
like the row boat. He talks about Winnie, someday becoming a woman and then moving
on to make room for more children and she understands that someday she would die and
she cries out, “I don’t want to die.” Tuck says, “you can’t have living without dying.”
They just are, they just be, like rocks on the side of the road being passed by, they never
get a to move or change and that’s want life is like. He explains that if people knew about
the spring, they would want it, they would fight for it and then they would have to endure
that forever, the young ones young forever, the old ones old forever because they
wouldn’t understand it until later. Winnie struggles with this, no one had ever talked to
her about these things before. Then, Miles calls out to Tuck, the horse has been stolen.

Chapter 13: Later, the man in the yellow suit comes up to the Foster’s cottage, he pushes
through the gate, knocks on the door and announces, “I have happy news for you, I know
where they’ve taken the little girl.”

Chapter 14: The Tucks can do nothing about the horse being stolen because it is too
late/dark to go looking for it. They decide to go to bed. Tuck has a bad feeling about it,
thinks there is more to it than just a stolen horse. Mae makes a bed for Winnie on the old
sofa. Winnie does not sleep at all, her “bed” was not particularly comfortable and she was
still in her clothes and lacking her regular nighttime routine. She struggled with the
conversation in the row boat, she wondered if she really believed the Tuck’s story. She
thinks about the man in the yellow suit, convinced that he would have told her parents
about seeing her by now. Mae comes to check on her, lingering, and apologizing, they
aren’t used to visitors, she is glad to have Winnie there, wishing she was “ours.” Tuck
comes to check on her as well, thinking she must be asleep and being surprised she is still
awake, he insists that she holler if she needs anything. Before going back to bed Tuck
bent and kissed her on the cheek. Winnie was confused but she also felt cared for, were
they criminals? She wondered what would happen to the Tucks when her father arrived.
Then Jesse came to visit her as well, he proposes something. Jesse asks her to wait until
she is seventeen and then drink some of the water and then she could go away with him,
they could get married and they could see the world. He says Miles, Ma and Pa don’t
know how to enjoy it, that life’s for enjoying and they could just have a good old time
that would never end. Winnie has no idea what to think of this, or anything.

Chapter 15: Back at the Foster’s the man in the yellow suit has a proposition of his own,
he explains how he would like to own the wood next to their house (and oh, they must be
so worried about their daughter). He points out that he is the only one who knows where
she is and talks about the “rough country people” who had taken Winnie, who could do
who knows what to them. He is blackmailing them; he will tell them where Winnie is if
they give him the wood. He sees that their faces are calm, that they will go along with
this, he explains how it will go, the Fosters will sign a paper giving the wood to this
stranger, they will get the local constable and the two of them will go bring back the child
and the criminals.

Chapter 16: The constable is suspicious of the man in the yellow suit, he explains that he
had to follow the “criminals” to find out where they were taking Winnie and that the
Fosters had sold the stranger their wood, the constable is very surprised at this. The
constable is complaining about the long way they need to go, being as tired as he was.
They are talking, constable says there has never been a kidnapping case, in fifteen years;
he is really trying to get a conversation going, but the stranger is fairly quiet. He asks
about the wood, what the stranger will be doing with it. The stranger continues to be quiet
and wants to ride ahead to “keep watch.” The constable won’t be able to get his horse
moving any quicker, so the stranger goes and ahead after explaining how to get there to
the constable.

Chapter 17: Winnie woke early. Winnie saw a toad, but realized it was not her toad, but
she thought of her toad. Miles came down from the loft and they went out to the pond to
catch some fish for breakfast. It was very peaceful out on the water and she was certain
that they would take her home later that day; she found that she loved them, they were
her friends, they had kidnapped her but nothing bad had happened. Miles talks to her a
bit, she has never been fishing before, they stop the boat and Miles starts to get the poles
ready. Winnie thinks about the differences between Miles and Jesse. Miles talks about his
children, his girl, Anna, that he used to take fishing, she would be 80 now and his son 82.
She wondered why he hadn’t fed his children the water, of course they hadn’t known
about the water before his family had left him and after they found out, he had thought
about trying to find them, but his wife would have been 40 by then and his children
nearly grown to the same age as their father; also, Tuck was determined that no one else
should know about the water. Winnie thinks it would be nice if nothing had to die but
Miles puts her straight, if nothing ever died then the world would be a very crowded
place. Winnie’s line tightens, she has a fish, but then it gets away, she doesn’t want to
fish anymore, she doesn’t want to kill a fish, Miles continues to fish. Winnie thinks about
what Miles said, in respect to mosquitoes, if no mosquitoes died the world would be
teaming with them, she realizes that the Tuck’s are right, no one can find out about the
spring, especially the mosquitoes. Winnie asks Miles what he will do if he has so much
time, he wants to do something important, like Winnie. Then Miles catches a fish, Winnie
wants him to put it back, he wants to protest but he puts it back.

Chapter 18: There were flapjacks again for breakfast; Miles tells his family they didn’t
get any bites. Jesse came down just as breakfast was being served; Winnie’s stomach is
till fluttering from the night before. They start to talk about how they will get Winnie
back but Mae says they will talk after breakfast. She thought for a moment how she loved
them and how nice it would be to grow up there, with them, and if it was true about the
spring, maybe when she was 17 she could marry Jesse, she thinks about how Tuck is the
dearest to her. Just then, someone knocks on the door (they are terribly surprised), Mae
goes to the door, it was the man in the yellow suit, he asks to come in.

Chapter 19: The man in the yellow suit tells Winnie he’s come to take her home; Tuck
says they were going to take her home. The man tells them to sit down so he can say what
he needs to say. The man starts to tell them about his grandmother’s friend, who had
married the older of two brothers, after 20 years the husband hadn’t aged and she left him
and took their two children (they realize he is talking about Miles and his family). He
talks about how he had devoted his life to finding out about people who could live
forever, who couldn’t die after hearing his mothers stories of this family. His mother had
also remembered learning a tune, from Mae’s music box, the man had learned it too and
it haunted him. He began his journey, he asked everywhere he went, but no one seemed
to know of them, but then, he had heard the tune coming from the wood and then they
had seen them taking Winnie the next morning. He explains that the Fosters had given
him the wood in exchange for bringing Winnie home. Winnie realized that the Tuck’s
story was too, or, this man was crazy too. The man tells Tuck what he will do with the
wood, the spring, he says he will sell the water and only to some people and it will be
very expensive, but wouldn’t people give a fortune to live forever. He tries to convince
them to join him, help him to the spring, set up demonstrations, of course he will pay
them but Jesse realizes that he is asking them to be “freaks in a patent-medicine show.”
The man tries to drag Winnie away, they are screaming at one another, Winnie is
screaming too, Mae’s voice cuts through the noise, “you leave that child be,” she is
holding Tuck’s long-forgotten shotgun. He continues to insult them and explains that he
will have Winnie drink the water for his demonstrations, that children are more appealing
anyway. Mae hits the man in the yellow suit on the head to prevent the secret from
getting out, to protect Winnie. Just then, the Treegap constable comes through the
clearing to see it all.

Chapter 20: The man is not dead, yet. Mae tells the constable that he hit him because he
was taking the child against her will. The constable says they had taken her against her
will but Winnie says that she had come there because she wanted to, they are her friends.
Winnie sees Tuck staring at the man on the ground, he looked envious. The constable
needs to take Mae and lock her up and take Winnie back home; he tells them to take care
of the man and he will come back with a doctor. Miles says they will get her out, but the
constable says if the man dies, Mae will go to the gallows. Winnie tells Tuck, “don’t
worry. Everything’s going to be all right.” Winnie knew that Mae must not go to the
gallows because even if she deserved it, she would not be able to die.

Chapter 21: The constable had brought Winnie home, her family had rushed at her, they
pause a moment to here from the constable that she had gone away with the Tucks on her
own decision, she tried to explain why she wanted to go with them and how kind they
were. She asks about them giving the wood to the stranger, she is frank, maybe he won’t
want it now, and maybe he would die. They looked at her like she was different, and she
was. Winnie thinks that the man mustn’t die, she is worried about Mae, but then, if the it
was true about the spring, he must die and that’s why Mae had done what she did. Then
she head hoofbeats on the road, it was the constable, the man had died, Mae will go to the
gallows. Mae had killed the man, she had meant to kill him, she was trying to spare the
world, but she must not go to the gallows.

Chapter 22: Winnie’s family is being cautious with her all of a sudden, she goes outside,
she is thinking about Mae and she sees the toad and speaks to it. Winnie goes back inside
for some water for the toad but her grandmother tells her that toads don’t drink water, she
says she will sprinkle the water on the toad, her grandmother will come with her because
she doesn’t want Winnie to go out of the yard alone. She starts to think about Mae again
and then, all of a sudden, Jesse is there. Jesse tells Winnie the plan, they are afraid since
the constable is constantly watching Mae they won’t have much time to get away. Jesse
gives her a bottle of the water for her to drink when she is 17. Winnie comes up with an
idea, she will take Mae’s place in the jail cell so that the constable doesn’t realize she is
gone. Winnie insists she wants to help and Jesse will come to get her at midnight, at
midnight she would make a difference and as she turns to call to her granny, Jesse
disappears.

Chapter 23: Winnie, her mother and grandmother sat in the parlor trying to beat the heat,
Winnie then went to her room, she hid Jesse’s bottle and then she began to wait. After
dinner she went back outside, the sky was changing it looked like rain. Her family went
to bed early, closing windows on their way. Winnie felt anxious and guilty as she waited
for midnight. She knew it would be forbidden although she had her own sense of
rightness. She is thinking about the Tucks, how she felt she needed to take care of them,
how horrible it would be to prove their story in such a horrific way, if Mae went to the
gallows. Then she thinks of Jesse, would she drink the water when she was 17, if she did,
would she be sorry afterwards. She fell asleep for a while and woke just before midnight.

Chapter 24: Leaving the house was very easy. Jesse was waiting at the gate and they ran
together, hand in hand into the village. They came up to Miles and Tuck, Tuck hugged
her and Miles squeezed her hand. The four of them went to the back of the new jail.
Miles stood on a box and got to work pouring oil around the frame of the window, then,
pried the nails loose. They could hear the constable, whistling, coming closer and then
away again and Miles was back to work. After a flash of lightning and a crack of thunder,
Miles heaved in the noise, it did not move, he waited for the next crash of thunder and the
frame came loose this time and Miles went to the ground. Mae came through the space
although it was very close. They each kissed Winnie, Jesse last he pulled her close and
whispered in her ear, “Remember!” Miles lifts Winnie through and then at the next crash
of thunder the window is back in place. The storm is in full force now, rain blows into
Winnie’s face as she looks through the bars of the jail house, and the Tuck’s are gone.

Chapter 25: It has been two weeks since the Tuck’s escape; it is nearing the end of
summer. Mae had not been found, there was no trace of her. She began to review it
again, how the constable had come into the cell soon after she had settled into to let down
a shutter to keep out the rain, he had left and not come back till morning. Winnie had not
slept; she could not cough and her fear when she had heard the crash of the gallows
blowing over in the wind. She remembered the constables face when he found her. He
had wanted to keep her in jail, she was a criminal, but too young to punish. She was
released into the custody of her parents; they asked her why she had done such a thing.
She had said she had done it because – in spite of everything, she loved them. She
became a “figure of romance,” and although she wasn’t allowed to leave the yard the
children of Treegap came to see her and talk to her through the bars of the fence. Then,
she saw the toad come out of the grass and then a dog which chased after the toad, she
tried to shoo him away. She grabbed the toad and pulled it through the fence to save it,
then she ran in the house, got Jesse’s bottle and poured the water over the toad and said,
“There! . . . You’re safe. Forever.” There was always more water in the wood, if she
decided when she was 17, to drink the water.

Epilogue: Mae and Tuck came into Treegap in a wooden wagon and noticed all the
changes, including the missing wood and touch-me-not cottage. They stop at a diner to
get a cup of coffee, they asked the counterman about the wood. The wood had been
burned down by an electrical storm about three years ago. A big tree had caught fire and
split right down the middle, even tore up the ground, they had bulldozed it all out. Tuck
asks if there used to be a freshwater spring there and the man doesn’t know because they
bulldozed it out. The Tuck’s go back through town on foot, and into the cemetery, the
saw a tall monument with Foster on it and found the stone he was looking for with the
inscription:
“In Loving Memory
Winifred Foster Jackson
Dear Wife
Dear Mother
1870-1948”
Winnie had been dead two years. They had known she wasn’t coming, but they still feel
bad for Jesse. They talk about where to go next and see the toad in the road but the toad
was unconcerned, even when a pickup truck went past. Tuck picked up the toad and
moved it to the weeds on the side of the road, Tuck says, “Durn fool thing must think it’s
going to live forever.” The music box played as they rode away.