Additionally, Winnie's mother and grandmother view their home as a place of safety and well-being. When Winnie is playing outside in chapter 3, talking to a nearby toad, her mother calls out to her, "Come in now, Winnie. Right away. You'll get heat stroke out there on a day like this" (14).

Her mother and grandmother are not only worried that Winnie might get dirty playing outside, but they are also worried that she might get ill from the heat.

Soon after, in chapter 4, Winnie talks to a stranger described as the man in the yellow suit. Winnie is pleasant while conversing with this man and answering his questions. After, her grandmother overhears her talking to him, a stranger, and she comes outside to see what is happening. She shows signs of being worried about this man's presence. The book describes how she "squinted suspiciously" at him (19). Overall, she seems concerned for the safety of her granddaughter as she questions him: "We haven't met, that I can recall. Who are you? Who are you looking for?" (20). He, in turn, asks the grandmother questions about how long they had lived in their home and who the family knows in the neighborhood. She responds, with distrust, "I don't know everyone . . . And I don't stand outside in the dark discussing such a thing with strangers."

Later, after hearing some peculiar music coming from the woods and suggesting that the sound came from elves, the grandmother leads Winnie back inside the house, which she views as a place of safety:

"She shook the gate latch under his nose, to make sure it was locked, and then, taking Winnie by the hand once more, she marched up the path into the cottage, shutting the door firmly behind her" (21).

While Winnie feels trapped and restricted by the walls of her house and the fence around her yard, her mother and grandmother view their home as a place of safety and well-being.

The man in the yellow suit ultimately uses the family's concern for Winnie's safety to gain ownership of the Foster's woods. He tells Winnie's family, "Why, the little girl and I, we're friends already. It would be a great relief to see her safely home again, wouldn't it? . . . Dreadful thing, kidnapping" (74). He knows that they want Winnie returned to her safe home and that they would be willing to sacrifice almost anything to get her back with them. The Foster family views the home as a place of safety and the woods and places beyond the home as places of unknown dangers.

At the beginning of Tuck Everlasting, Winnie feels as if her home is a cage. Her mother and her grandmother don't let her go outside of her fenced yard, and they constantly watch her and give her reminders and warnings. Because she wants more freedom and independence, she decides to run away. When the Tucks kidnap her and take her to their "homely little house" in the woods, she is unprepared for how untidy it is. She is used to the "pitiless" order of her home, so she is amazed "that people could live in such disarray." Later, when she returns home, she seems to take comfort in her own little rocking chair in her room. Even though she's what we would call grounded, as punishment for helping Mae escape from jail, she seems more satisfied with her home since she's had an experience of her own.

The passage in the novel that gives the most insight into how Winnie's mother and grandmother feel about their home is the first paragraph of chapter 10. Here we learn that the two women kept their cottage spotless: They "mopped and swept and scoured [it] into limp submission." They never procrastinate in their duties of keeping the home clean. Indeed, they "had made a fortress out of duty." We also know from chapter 1 that the home is a "touch-me-not" cottage that was forbidding to visitors. And in chapter 25, we learn that the whole family, including the women, were proud. From these descriptions, we can infer that Winnie's mother and grandmother take great pride in keeping their home pristine, but they don't open their home to strangers willingly. They seem to care more about order and rules than making their home a place that communicates love and emotional warmth.

The home is not presented as a welcoming place from the perspective of any of these three female characters. Readers feel little remorse when they read in the Epilogue that the house is no longer there when the Tucks finally return decades later.