Summary
Chapter Sixteen
The constable is a fat and sleepy man, and he is annoyed to be sent on a chase for Winnie Foster. However, the man in the yellow suit is determined that they head towards the place where the Tucks are keeping Winnie. The constable reluctantly agrees, though he grumbles his suspicion that the man in the yellow suit is in cahoots with the kidnappers. The man in the yellow suit mentions that the Fosters have sold him the woods, which surprises the constable. The constable chats endlessly. He talks about the quiet town, as well as the new jail that was recently built. The man in the yellow suit gets annoyed by all this chatter and decides to ride on ahead.
Chapter Seventeen
Winnie wakes up early, as does Miles. Miles invites her to go fishing with him on the pond, and Winnie agrees. Winnie is cheerful. The pond is beautiful, and she is sure the Tucks will take her home today. Winnie looks at Miles and thinks that he is strong like an oar, whereas Jesse is thin and quick like water. She finds herself thinking about Jesse a lot. Miles tells Winnie that he once had a daughter who was like her. Winnie asks why he didn't offer his children immortality, and he says it would have been mixed up for the children to be the same age as their father.
The two look at the frogs and the turtles, and Winnie says it would be nice if nothing had to die. Miles says that this would just result in a very crowded world. Winnie thinks about how terrible it would be if nasty creatures like mosquitoes lived forever. Winnie asks Miles what he'll do with his immortality, and he says he wants to do something important. Winnie has felt the same way too. Miles catches a big fish, but the idea of the beautiful creature dying makes Winnie want to cry. She asks Miles to put it back, and he does. Miles says that killing is only natural, and Winnie says, "I know. But still..."
Chapter Eighteen
The Tucks and Winnie eat flapjacks for breakfast, and Miles says they didn't catch any fish worth keeping. Winnie and the Tucks enjoy each other's company, but Tuck is still concerned about the missing horse, which will make it difficult to return Winnie to her family. Suddenly, the family hears a knock on the door. When they answer it, the man in the yellow suit steps into the house.
Chapter Nineteen
The man in the yellow suit tells Winnie she's safe now, but she doesn't feel reassured. Tuck insists that the rest of them were going to take her home, but the man in the yellow suit ignores him.
Instead, the man in the yellow suit explains that his grandmother told him stories about a family that never aged. His grandmother's friend had married one of the sons in the family, but she'd left him when he still looked the same after years of marriage. The woman had a son and a daughter, and Miles exclaims that they were his. The man in the yellow suit says he was fascinated by these stories, and eventually attended university to try to find the secrets behind them. He could find no evidence of this mysterious family, and nearly gave up. However, one day he brought his grandmother a music box as a gift, and she remarked that the mother of the family that never aged also had a music box, and hummed part of the tune. The man in yellow remembered the tune, thinking it was a useful clue. He was searching the countryside looking for this mysterious family when he heard that tune - it was Mae's music box. He followed the tune and listened in on their story, then made the Fosters give him the woods in exchange for bringing back Winnie.
The man in yellow says he plans to sell the water for a high price, and only to people he approves of. However, he would welcome the Tucks if they helped him advertise - they can shoot themselves in the chest to prove that the spring water really does make a person immortal. The Tucks are enraged by this suggestion. The man in yellow grabs Winnie, who screams in protest. He tells the Tucks that they were selfish and stupid to keep the knowledge of the spring to themselves. He'll force Winnie to drink some of the water, and she can help him advertise for his product instead. Mae is enraged by this idea and grabs Tuck's shotgun. She hits the man in yellow in the head with the gun, and he falls to the ground. It is at this moment that the constable walks in.
Chapter Twenty
The man in yellow lies limply on the ground. Mae explains to the constable that he threatened Winnie, but the constable says that she was the one who kidnapped the girl. Winnie tells him that the Tucks didn't kidnap her, but she instead came because she wanted to. Tuck is looking at the form of the man in the yellow suit with envy in his eyes, and Winnie takes his hand to distract him. The constable says he needs to take Winnie back to her family, and he needs to take Mae as well because she attacked the man in the yellow suit. They need to get him to a doctor, and if he dies, then Mae will be hanged. This terrifies the rest of the Tucks, but Winnie surprises herself by telling them not to worry, because everything is going to be all right. On the ride back, Winnie tries to think about how to help her friends, because Mae will not be able to die even if she was executed.
Chapter Twenty-One
Winnie sits in the rocking chair in her room. Her family had been so happy to see her, but they dismissed her when she said that the Tucks had not kidnapped her. She asks them about the man in the yellow suit and if they had given him the woods in exchange for finding her, and they said they had. She bluntly explains that Mae hit him in the head with a shotgun and that he might die, which shocks her family and makes them treat her differently. A storm starts to brew as Winnie thinks about how to help the Tucks. She also thinks about the man in the yellow suit - if he dies, that means Mae will be sent to the gallows, but if he lives, he knows about the spring and will plan to sell the water. Not long after, a man comes to the door to announce that the man in the yellow suit has died. Since there was no kidnapping, the rest of the Tucks will not face charges, but Mae Tuck will be executed. Winnie thinks about the time she killed a wasp and then immediately wishes she hadn't. She wonders if Mae is weeping for the man in the yellow suit. Despite the fact that Mae is a murderer, Winnie is determined to help her.
Analysis
In Chapter Twenty-One, Winnie bluntly remarks that the man in the yellow suit might die as the result of his injuries, which shocks her parents and grandmother. This radical honesty and insight is evidence of her character growth - she accepts that death is a thing that happens to all living creatures and is not afraid to speak about it. The narrative implies that her family does not entirely accept this truth (they are shocked when she says this and they treat her with some anxiety). However, though she accepts death, she does not glorify it or seek to push living things to death before their time. The incident with the fish on the lake in Chapter Seventeen makes this clear - Winnie does not want to be the reason that this beautiful living creature dies, even if that means that she goes hungry.
There are elements of class differences between the Tucks and the man in yellow. The speaking style of the man in the yellow suit (which is very formal and stilted) as well as his brag of receiving a university education suggests that he is wealthy and educated, while the Tucks have received no formal education and live in simplicity. Yet he is evil and they are good, which suggests that goodness is not necessarily related to wealth or education.
One of the central questions that pushed Natalie Babbitt to write Tuck Everlasting is this: why might it not be good to be immortal? The narrative suggests four distinct reasons: it removes one from the cycle of life, it is lonely, it would make the world too crowded, and it would allow evil or unpleasant creatures to remain in the world forever. Previously, Tuck said that it is unnatural, that it removes a person from the cycles of growth and decay that characterize the lives of every living creature. The Tucks explained to Winnie how their former community had driven them out because they did not age, and they did not dare to make new friends who would eventually learn their secret. While on the pond, Miles points out that the world would get very crowded if no one ever died. Winnie wonders about a world in which creatures like mosquitoes could never be killed, and the arrival of the wicked man in the yellow suit, who wants to exploit the spring for profit, raises difficult questions about the difficulties resulting from an evil person drinking from the spring of immortality.
It is perhaps a narrative gap that the Foster family do not suspect the man in yellow of kidnapping Winnie (especially given that he was seen speaking to her when she was in the yard a few nights before) and turn him over to the constable. However, this may point to how desperate they are to find their daughter again.
Despite the fact that Mae is a murderer, Winnie is determined to help her. Though Mae is indeed guilty of killing a man, she did this only to protect Winnie and did not actually intend to kill the man, just drive him away. Moreover, if Mae is executed, she will not die. Not only would this potentially reveal the secret of the Tucks to the rest of the world, it could also result in great suffering for Mae - though she cannot die, she can probably still feel pain, so execution could be an agonizing experience.
