“It was amazing, then, to climb a long hill, to see ahead another hill, and beyond that the deep green of a scattered pine forest, and as you climbed, to feel the air ease and soften. Winnie revived, sniffing, and was able to ride the horse again, perched behind Mae. And to her oft-repeated question, “Are we almost there?”

“The welcome answer came at last: “Only a few more minutes now.”

“A wide stand of dark pines rose up, loomed nearer, and suddenly Jesse was crying, “We’re home! This is it, Winnie Foster!”

“And he and Miles raced on and disappeared among the trees. The horse followed, turning onto a rutted path lumpy with roots, and it was as if they had slipped in under a giant colander. The late sun’s brilliance could penetrate only in scattered glimmers, and everything was silent and untouched, the ground muffled with moss and sliding needles, the graceful arms of the pines stretched out protectively in every direction. And it was cool, blessedly cool and green. The horse picked his way carefully, and then ahead the path dropped down a steep embankment; and beyond that, Winnie, peering around Mae’s bulk, saw a flash of color and a dazzling sparkle. Down the embankment they swayed and there it was, a plain, homely little house, barn-red, and below it the last of the sun flashing on the wrinkled surface of a tiny lake. …

10
“Winnie had grown up with order. She was used to it. Under the pitiless double assaults of her mother and grandmother, the cottage where she lived was always squeaking clean, mopped and swept and scoured into limp submission. There was no room for carelessness, no putting things off until later. The Foster women had made a fortress out of duty. Within it, they were indomitable. And Winnie was in training. So she was unprepared for the homely little house beside the pond, unprepared for the gentle eddies of dust, the silver cobwebs, the mouse who lived—and welcome to him!—in a table drawer. There were only three rooms. The kitchen came first, with an open cabinet where dishes were stacked in perilous towers without the least regard for their varying dimensions. There was an enormous black stove, and a metal sink, and every surface, every wall, was piled and strewn and hung with everything imaginable, from onions to lanterns to wooden spoons to wash-tubs. And in a corner stood Tuck’s forgotten shotgun.

“The parlor came next, where the furniture, loose and sloping with age, was set about helter-skelter. Ancient green-plush sofa lolled alone in the center, like yet another mossy fallen log, facing a soot-streaked fireplace still deep in last winter’s ashes. The table with the drawer that housed the mouse was pushed off, also alone, into a far corner, and three armchairs and an elderly rocker stood about aimlessly, like strangers at a party, ignoring each other.

“Beyond this was the bedroom, where a vast and tipsy brass bed took up most of the space, but there was room beside it for the washstand with the lonely mirror, and opposite its foot a cavernous oak wardrobe from which leaked the faint smell of camphor.

“Up a steep flight of narrow stairs was a dusty loft—”That’s where the boys sleep when they’re home,” Mae explained—and that was all. And yet it was not quite all. For there was everywhere evidence of their activities, Mae’s and Tuck’s. Her sewing: patches and scraps of bright cloth; half-completed quilts and braided rugs; a bag of cotton batting with wisps of its contents, like snow, drifting into cracks and corners; the arms of the sofa webbed with strands of thread and dangerous with needles.

“His wood carving: curly shavings furring the floor, and little heaps of splinters and chips; every surface dim with the sawdust of countless sandings; limbs of unassembled dolls and wooden soldiers; a ship model propped on the mouse’s table, waiting for its glue to dry; and a stack of wooden bowls, their sides smoothed to velvet, the topmost bowl filled with a jumble of big wooden spoons and forks, like dry, bleached bones. “We make things to sell,” said Mae, surveying the mess approvingly.

“And still this was not all. For, on the old beamed ceiling of the parlor, streaks of light swam and danced and wavered like a bright mirage, reflected through the windows from the sunlit surface of the pond. There were bowls of daisies everywhere, gay white and yellow. And over everything was the clean, sweet smell of the water and its weeds, the chatter of a swooping kingfisher, the carol and trill of a dozen other kinds of bird, and occasionally the thrilling bass note of an unastonished bullfrog at ease somewhere along the muddy banks.” Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

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The House or Home as a Theme in Literature

Although it is not always the case,”Home” is often a type of heaven or nirvana in literature, and that is certainly the case in Tuck Everlasting.

When the Tucks were in the village, they were separated from the perfect arms of “Home.” Winnie lived in the less perfect village. Although she called the place where she lived in Treegap
“Home,” Winnie’s house in Treegap is not the idyllic “Home” where the Tucks live. Until the passage above, Winnie had never been “Home,” as it is referenced in the previous words.

Babbitt uses literary themes to help her establish the essence of the Tucks’ home. The Tucks’ home is seated in the center of the unadulterated forest or the Wood. Babbitt calls the Wood the hub of the wheel. In doing so, she placed Tuck Everlasting within the tenets of Nature as a literary theme, and the Tucks’ house is square within that Wood.

Nature as a Theme in Literature

As the Tucks and Winnie near the red house in the Wood, they begin to experience some relief from the glaring sun and heat that is part of life in the village, but things remain parched.

“The pastures, fields, and scrubby groves they crossed were vigorous with bees, and crickets leapt before them as if each step released a spring and flung them up like pebbles. But everything else was motionless, dry as biscuit, on the brink of burning, hoarding final reservoirs of sap, trying to hold out till the rain returned, and Queen Anne’s lace lay dusty on the surface of the meadows like foam on a painted sea.” Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

When they actually arrive at “Home” or this literary nirvana, the arms of the pine trees shelter them from the sun’s brutal heat.

“…it was as if they had slipped in under a giant colander. The late sun’s brilliance could penetrate only in scattered glimmers, and everything was silent and untouched, the ground muffled with moss and sliding needles, the graceful arms of the pines stretched out protectively in every direction. And it was cool, blessedly cool and green.” Babbit, Tuck Everlasting

Babbitt has also placed the Tucks’ house by a lake, and water is another literary theme that I’ll begin to explain later.

The sun can allude to a parching drying phenomenon in literature. T. S. Eliot plays on this metaphor in The Waste Land. Paradoxically, however light often alludes to enlightenment in literature. Consider the thought: “I saw the light.”

The Tucks’ parlor, inside their “Home,” is described as smelling of water and glistening with filtered light:

“And still this was not all. For, on the old beamed ceiling of the parlor, streaks of light swam and danced and wavered like a bright mirage, reflected through the windows from the sunlit surface of the pond. There were bowls of daisies everywhere, gay white and yellow. And over everything was the clean, sweet smell of the water and its weeds, the chatter of a swooping kingfisher, the carol and trill of a dozen other kinds of bird, and occasionally the thrilling bass note of an unastonished bullfrog at ease somewhere along the muddy banks.” Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting