kneels down to take a drink, Mae Tuck arrives. She quickly assesses the situation and announces that the worst has finally happened. Chapter 6 then begins, and Winnie finds herself on the back of the horse being taken away from the spring. Mae keeps apologizing for their actions, and she promises to explain everything at their home. The Tucks have taken Winnie for two main reasons:

1. The Tucks grabbed Winnie in order to physically prevent her from drinking the spring water that would turn her immortal.
2. The Tucks take Winnie because they feel obligated to tell her the truth about the spring.

Mae and Jesse stop to rest, and they tell Winnie their story; however, they are still not willing to send Winnie on her way home. They want to make sure that Winnie fully understands the danger of the spring and the necessity of keeping it a secret. Mae Tuck believes that her husband is the best person for that job. They want to take Winnie home so that Angus can convince Winnie to keep the secret.

"We got to take you home with us. That's the plan. Tuck—he'll want to talk it out, make sure you see why you can't tell no one. But we'll bring you back tomorrow. All right?"

The Tucks never meant to kidnap Winnie; they only brought her with them so that they would have enough time to explain to her about the spring.  Mae tells Winnie, "Tuck - he'll want to talk it out, make sure you see why you can't tell no one.  But we'll bring you back tomorrow," (p. 43).  They weren't bad people, or true kidnappers.  They were simply afraid that she might tell someone about the water in the woods, and then their secret would be out for the world to know.  The problem is, if everyone were immortal, the world would be too crowded.  Also, having lived with immortality for years, the Tucks knew that it wasn't the right way to live; they didn't wish that on other people.  So they had to bring Winnie home with them in order to fully explain the situation to her and to ensure that she wouldn't tell anyone else about the water.

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.

Winnie believes that she is being kidnapped in chapter 6 because she is physically picked up from the ground, deposited onto the back of a horse, and rushed out of the area where she and Jesse have just been talking. All of this happens without her permission. In fact, Winnie isn't even given the opportunity to say no. Jesse, Miles, and Mae simply decide that they need to take Winnie with them.

First she was kneeling on the ground, insisting on a drink from the spring, and the next thing she knew, she was seized and swung through the air, open-mouthed, and found herself straddling the bouncing back of the fat old horse, with Miles and Jesse trotting along on either side, while Mae ran puffing ahead, dragging on the bridle.

As it turns out, though, the Tucks are just as frightened as Winnie.

Winnie had often been haunted by visions of what it would be like to be kidnapped. But none of her visions had been like this, with her kidnappers just as alarmed as she was herself. She had always pictured a troupe of burly men with long black mustaches who would tumble her into a blanket and bear her off like a sack of potatoes while she pleaded for mercy. But, instead, it was they, Mae Tuck and Miles and Jesse, who were pleading.

The reason for the Tucks' fright is because Winnie discovers their secret spring, and the Tucks panic as to how to respond. Their panicked response is to grab Winnie and get her away from the spring. Once Winnie is away from the spring, the Tucks then explain to Winnie who they are and what the spring is capable of doing.

I do not necessarily think that the Tucks had to carry Winnie off. They could have left her in the woods by the spring and simply run away. They chose to grab Winnie and haul her away with them.

First she was kneeling on the ground, insisting on a drink from the spring, and the next thing she knew, she was seized and swung through the air, open-mouthed, and found herself straddling the bouncing back of the fat old horse, with Miles and Jesse trotting along on either side, while Mae ran puffing ahead, dragging on the bridle.

I believe that the Tucks chose that line of action because they panicked.

"This is awful!" said Jesse. "Can't you do something, Ma? The poor little tad."

"We ought to've had some better plan than this," said Miles.

"That's the truth," said Mae helplessly. . . "But I never expected it'd be a child!"

The reason that the Tuck family panicked was because they were unprepared for their discoverer to be a child. They knew that sooner or later the spring would be found, but it never occurred to them that the person who found it would be anything other than an adult.

Carrying Winnie off was, first, possible. They could physically do it. They could not have done that to an adult male. Second, Winnie (as a child) wasn't likely capable of putting up much of a fight. Lastly, Winnie wasn't likely to go with the Tucks by her own choice. I'm sure that her overprotective family drilled "stranger danger" into her head. Carrying Winnie off was likely the fastest and easiest solution at that particular moment, though perhaps not a smart decision.