Winnie isn’t sure what to do or think of his suggestion. Jesse asks Winnie to think about drinking the spring water when she is 17 so that the two of them would be the same age and could be together the next time the Tucks come back.

After everyone is in bed that night, Mae, Angus and Jesse all check on Winnie to make sure she is OK. The family plans to take Winnie to her home the next morning. After Angus tells her about the dangers and negative aspects of living forever, Winnie decides she will keep the secret.Īlthough homesick and a bit frightened, Winnie is starting to like the Tuck family. At the Tuck house, Angus and Winnie row a boat out on the pond to talk. As the stranger eavesdrops, he realizes that this is the family he has been looking for and that the stories were true, so he continues to follow them.

Now that Winnie knows, the Tucks want her help to keep the secret, too. The Tuck boys and their parents separated, moving around to keep people from finding out about their secret and the spring. Eventually, the family’s friends distanced themselves. They didn’t tell anyone and camouflaged the spring. The family realized something must have happened to them when they drank the water, because accidents never injured them, and as time passed, they didn’t age. Years ago the Tucks drank from that same spring in the woods as they looked for a place to settle. Pausing by a stream, the Tucks tell Winnie their story. The group passes the stranger on the road that runs by the woods, and he follows them. Surprised, Winnie thinks she is being kidnapped. Mae and Miles Tuck arrive, and the three of them unexpectedly lift Winnie up on their horse and take her out of the woods and to the Tuck home. Winnie wants a drink, too, but Jesse won’t let her have one and says it would be bad for her. She watches as he drinks from the hidden forest spring and then covers it back up again. The next morning, Winnie walks into the woods to search for the source of the music and sees Jesse Tuck there. He has spent years trying to discover the secret of living forever and is looking for the family, but he doesn’t share that with Winnie or her grandmother. The stranger recognizes the music from stories he heard as a youth about a family that never aged. The Foster family owns the woods and lives next to them. Ten-year-old Winnie Foster, her grandmother and a stranger who is talking to them hear the music as they stand in Winnie’s front yard. As reunion time nears again, Angus Tuck stays home while his wife, Mae, heads to the woods outside of town to meet their sons. Once every 10 years, the Tucks meet for a family reunion.

Tuck everlasting book cover