Across Five Aprils - Itasca Middle School

Summary and Analysis 23
about being angry with her and offers to let him read the rest of the letter. Jethro declines
and forgives her.
Later that night they hear horses, and they find a message: "There’s trubel fer fokes that
stands up fer there reb lovin sons." After that they take turns watching at night, and Nancy
and her sons stay at the Creightons. A few weeks pass and their fears dissipate somewhat,
until one night they awaken to the site of the barn burning down. When Jethro tries to get
water from the well, he finds it full of coal oil.
Chapter 7
Men from all over the country help the Creightons that spring, bringing farming equipment,
helping with the barn, and keeping an eye out. Meanwhile, news of the battle of Shiloh
comes in, and one day Dan Lawrence, a soldier wounded at Shiloh, tells the Creightons that
Tom died there. Tom and Danny were watching boats with reinforcements when Tom got
hit, and he died instantly.
Ross Milton publishes a letter in the paper addressed to the people who burned the
Creightons’ barn and put oil in the well. In the letter he says that Matt Creighton and his son
Tom epitomize integrity and that the men harassing the Creightons are cowards who never
had to take a bullet for anything. Jenny writes Tom’s name in the ledger of births, deaths,
and marriages they keep in the Bible, and Jethro asks her about his three siblings who died
within a week of each other. Jenny says it was a miracle that she and Jethro did not get sick
too.
Later that summer, Sam Gardiner, owner of the store in town, expects trouble at the
hands of Guy Wortman, the man who had harassed Jethro. Wortman had sacked and robbed
many other stores in town, so Gardiner pretends to close up shop but instead lies in wait with
his shotgun for Wortman. Gardiner catches Wortman with buckshot, right in the behind.
Wortman ceases causing trouble after that.
Jethro starts worrying about the leadership of the Union army when Grant gets effectively
demoted. He thinks the Union generals care "more for personal prestige than for defeating
the Confederates" and is disappointed in their leadership.
Analysis
These chapters serve to further Jethro’s transformation from boy to man but in a different
way than the ones that preceded it. Jethro must become the man of the house after Matt has
a heart attack. He has to work the fields and earn income for the family, thus occupying
his mind and his days with more adult responsibility. It is no coincidence that Matt’s heart
attack occurs at the time the war is getting particularly bad, as if it will continue for some
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