Winnie thinks the Tuck house is disorderly but homey.
When Winnie gets kidnapped, the Tucks take her to their house. Since they do not want people asking questions about their being immortal, the Tucks’ house is far off the beaten path. Winnie is very impressed to see that it is next to a lake.
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. (Ch. 9)
The Tucks usually do not stay in one place for long. The longer they remain, the more people in town will get suspicious of them not aging when everyone else does. However, the Tucks have already been in their current house for years. Winnie’s first impression is a complete lack of order, something her family house has a lot of.
Winnie sees a “homey little house” that has a little bit of dust and some cobwebs, and even a mouse living in a 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. [Every] surface, every wall, was piled and strewn and hung with everything imaginable, from onions to lanterns to wooden spoons to wash-tubs. (Ch. 10)
Furniture is “set about helter-skelter” in the parlor and upstairs is a dusty loft where the boys sleep when they are there. The Tucks eat in the living room, which also surprises Winnie. She is used to proper eating at a table.
Even as messy and disordered as the Tucks home is, it is comfortable. Winnie comments that the Tucks don’t mind dust or the mouse. They have lived long enough that they have different priorities. They enjoy the simple things in life, and take it as it comes.
Winnie finds the Tucks friendly and their home amusing. She is entranced by their tale of immortality. However, the longer Winnie is at the Tuck home the more homesick she gets. She starts to tire of adventure and miss her family.
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