78 pages • 2 hours read
Richard PeckThe River Between Us
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2003A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 1-3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary
The River Between Us opens in the summer of 1916, in St. Louis, Missouri, where 15-year-old Howard Leland Hutchings narrates and is preparing to travel with his father to visit his father’s family in Grand Tower, Illinois. All Howard knows about his father’s family is that they lived through the Civil War. He can’t fathom being old enough to have voted for President Lincoln.
Howard’s father, the second William Hutchings, is a well-respected doctor. He is a busy man who works six-and-one-half days per week. However, he realizes that the US is likely to get involved in the Great War soon, so this may be his last opportunity to visit his parents. Therefore, Howard and his twin brothers, Raymond and Earl, get to drive across state lines in the family’s Model T Ford Touring Car to meet their distant grandparents.
Though Howard’s mother doesn’t approve of the trip, Howard is thrilled. He and his father have been prepping for days, making sure they have all the tools they might need and extra gasoline and filing down the spark plugs. Finally, the day of departure arrives. The boys wave goodbye to their mother and begin their road trip.
They get only four flat tires on the first day of travel, and despite multiple bathroom breaks, they put many miles behind them. They camp on the side of the road that night, and Dad tells the boys about Grand Tower, calling it a ghost town. His “homeplace” is on a hill called the Devil’s Backbone. He was raised in an old house, where he lived with his parents, Grandma Tilly and the first Dr. William Hutchings, along with Grandma Tilly’s twin brother, Noah, and his wife, Delphine. On dark nights upon the Devil’s Backbone, a ghost of an old woman in an old-timey dress runs across the road. Dad says that he personally never saw the ghost, but his mom refuses to talk about it, saying it hits too close to home.
The travelers arrive at Grand Tower the next day afternoon. Howard remembers the arrival as if it were a silent, black-and-white movie. Dad drives as far up the Devil’s Backbone as possible, and they walk the rest of the way to the house. Grandma Tilly and her husband are waiting on the porch. She is old but still seems young, but her husband looks ancient, though there is still life in his eyes. Grandma Tilly calls Howard’s dad “Young Bill” and calls Howard and the twins “Young Bill’s boys.”
The boys walk into the old house and upstairs, where Aunt Delphine is lying in a four-poster bed. The room is so crowded with dresses and random objects that Howard almost misses the stout old lady lying in the bed. Aunt Delphine has rings on each of her fingers, and her hair falls in ringlets under her cap. Above her bed is a portrait of a man with yellow hair in an old-fashioned costume. Aunt Delphine cries when she sees Young Bill.
In Howard’s memory, Uncle Noah is under the window of Aunt Delphine’s room, weeding in the garden with his shirt pinned around his missing arm, but Howard knows that his memory is faulty. Uncle Noah was probably on the porch with Grandma Tilly and Dr. Hutchings, Sr. For the first hour of their visit, even the rowdy twins are subdued, feeling the weight of history that the house contains. Howard feels it, too, wondering how many layers of wallpaper he would have to peel back to discover its true history or how quiet he would have to be to hear what happened in the past.
Chapter 2 Summary
Chapter 2 and the following 14 chapters are set in April 1861. These chapters are narrated by 15-year-old Tilly, who lives in the house on the Devil’s Backbone in Grand Tower. The town is named for a tall rock that rises out of the Mississippi River on the Missouri side. A dangerous stretch of river runs between Illinois and Missouri.
The chapter opens with Mama telling Tilly to go find her younger sister. Cass, who is 12 years old, often retreats to a private place on the hill that she calls the devil’s footstool. Tilly wanders up the hill thinking about the possibility of war, using paths that Cass has worn over the years. Lincoln was just inaugurated President of the United States and declared a blockade on the southern ports. This worries Tilly, because Grand Tower is dependent on the river trade.
Tilly finds Cass in tears, staring down at the river. This is common; Cass frequently sees ghosts of people dying in the whirlpools and eddies of the river. Until this point, Cass saw only people from the past in her visions. She watched the drownings of French and Spanish explorers, Indigenous American travelers in their canoes, and a famous wedding party on a boat ride back from Tower Rock. However, this time Cass tells Tilly that she sees boys blown apart, blue and grey, and the river running red with their blood. Tilly asks when this happened, and Cass says it hasn’t happened yet.
Tilly guides Cass down the hill toward the house, where Noah is coming up to meet them. He was in town drilling with other boys, practicing to join the Union Army. On the other side of town, there is another group of boys, led by Curry Marshall, doing the same thing; however, they’re drilling to join the Confederate Army. When Cass sees Noah walking toward them, she begins sobbing again.
Chapter 3 Summary
The Pruitt family gathers for a typical evening meal. When Cass is focused, she’s a great help to Mama and Tilly. Their home is very simple, with only a string latch on the door. They do not have a stove, and they cook with an open flame and a Dutch oven. During the winter, the family practically lives in the kitchen to keep warm. Cass is familiar with herbs found in the woods, and Noah frequently kills game for the family to eat.
Mama directs Noah to sit in Paw’s empty chair as a reminder that her son is the only man left in the family. Mama has worried about Noah leaving since the day he learned to walk. First, she was afraid that he would want to work on the river, as many Grand Tower men do, but now she is afraid that he will leave to join the war. This dinner, like every other, is eaten in silence by the light of the fire.
After dinner, Mama, Tilly, Noah, and Cass go into town for the first dance of the season, held above Roger’s store. Mama decided they would all go because she cannot stand people gossiping about Paw or Cass. When they arrive, Mama and Cass sit with the older women, watching the dance, while Noah and Tilly stand on the fringes.
Mr. Attabury sings to the music, making jokes about Abraham Lincoln being a fool, and Jeff Davis being the true president. Some of the dancers yell, “Boo!”; others cheer, depending on their political leanings. Noah and Tilly join the dance, and Tilly ends up dancing with her crush, Curry. The dancing continues until a steamboat whistle interrupts it. The entire room cheers, and all the young men hurry out to the docks, with the women following closely behind them. A steamboat from New Orleans is docking; though she has seen a steamboat before, Tilly is awed because she considers a steamboat a palace.
The boat is full of passengers, most likely southerners trying to avoid the upcoming war. Passengers exchange news with the dockworkers, sharing that cotton is still shipping from New Orleans, but the ship was boarded and searched in Cairo, Illinois. Two figures walk down the gangplank, catching everyone’s attention. The first is a young lady with perfectly curled dark hair, painted lips, the biggest skirts Tilly has ever seen, and a satin bonnet. She struggles walking down the gangplank, though she carries only a hatbox. Behind her is a taller, thinner woman carrying multiple boxes. She stands in the first woman’s shadow, and Tilly cannot see much about her, other than an intricately knotted silk bandanna tied around her head.
The woman stands in front of the crown and dramatically recounts that she was traveling to St. Louis to visit her aunt, but the journey is too dangerous to continue. She says she was insulted at Cairo, where Union officers searched her things and took her pearl-handled pistol. Though she wishes she could continue to her aunt’s estate in St. Louis, she is too afraid to go on and asks if there is a hotel in Grand Tower where she can stay.
Tilly, like most of the crowd, is enraptured by this young woman and her French accent. Tilly wonders if she is an actress; she has never seen a more convincing performance. The second young lady stays silent in the shadows, and Tilly wonders if she is enslaved by the other woman. Someone in the crowd says that the hotel in Grand Tower would not suit the rich young woman. To Tilly’s surprise, Mama offers to let the two women stay in their home.
The woman accepts, introducing herself as Delphine Duval and the woman behind her as Calinda. Tilly steps forward and introduces herself, Cass, and Noah, who carried one of Delphine’s trunks off the boat. Noah picks the trunk up again, and Cass and Tilly manage the other. Mama leads the way back up the Devil’s Backbone, with the two young ladies following closely behind.
Chapters 1-3 Analysis
These first chapters of the book introduce the main characters, establish the setting, and touch on the main themes of the book. Chapter 1 starts in St. Louis in 1916, just before the United States enters World War I. The narrator, Howard Leland Hutchings, is 15 years old and curious about traveling to Grand Tower, Illinois, to meet his father’s side of the family for the first time. All Howard knows about his father’s family is that they lived through the Civil War. Immediately, the theme of war and its effects on people’s lives is evident. Two wars are linked in this introduction: the Civil War and the Great War. Though only 55 years have passed between the two, young Howard cannot fathom being old enough to have voted for Lincoln. This introduces the theme of human perception of time, particularly for a young person. At the start of the story, Howard knows little about his father’s family; thus, he says, “And so I knew but little about myself” (11). Howard doesn’t know enough to have pride in his identity or his heritage, which also becomes an important theme of the novel.
Howard first meets his father’s parents, aunt, and uncle in their old age, and he is able only to perceive small hints about their character. He considers Grandma Tilly to be young somehow, in spite of her wrinkles, and he sees Dr. Hutchings, Sr., as military and refined, even though he cannot stand. Though Great Aunt Delphine cannot speak, Howard notices her room is full of dresses, and the portrait of her father hangs above her bed, highlighting both Delphine’s materialistic nature and her pride in her heritage. In Howard’s memory, Uncle Noah is gardening beneath his wife’s window, which demonstrates that Delphine and Noah are interlocked in Howard’s mind. Though Howard knows nothing of his family’s history at this point in the book, he can feel its weight in the house.
Chapter 2 is set in Grand Tower, Illinois, in 1861 and is narrated by 15-year-old Tilly. The first line of chapter 2—“‘Tilly!’ Mama called out to me from the kitchen. ‘Go find Cass’” (19)—introduces Tilly’s role in her family. Tilly is the dependable child, relied upon by her mother and her siblings. As the steady child, Tilly decides that “anything that worried Mama ought to worry me” (19). This remains true throughout the rest of the book. Cass is introduced as thin and frail, tortured by her visions of ghosts and death. Her appearance introduces the supernatural as a recurring motif. Cass is unreliable and also dependent on Tilly, who guides her down the hill when she cannot see through her tears. Noah, Tilly’s twin brother, is steadier than their Paw but “restless as a riderless horse” (26). Though Mama does everything in her power to remind Noah that he is the only man left in their family, both Mama and Tilly know that they cannot keep Noah for long. This reinforces that Tilly is the only dependable child; therefore, she carries most of the responsibility in the Pruitt family.
These chapters demonstrate the Pruitt family’s dynamic before Delphine and Calinda arrive. Tilly is the glue holding her family together. Cass is helpful but emotionally distant, burdened by her visions. Noah is quiet and restless, working through the days and drilling with other Northern-sympathizing boys. Mama is tough but fearful of losing Noah. She is prideful and hates hearing people talk behind her back about her family. Meals in the Pruitt home are quiet, tense, and dark.
These chapters set the stage for the Civil War, introducing the political tension of the era and the region; Lincoln was inaugurated the previous month, and blockades on the southern ports are announced. Two groups of boys are drilling in their free time. The group that is led by Curry, Tilly’s crush, consists of boys who hope to join the Confederate Army. The other group, led by Noah, hopes to join the Union Army. The town of Grand Tower is split between Northern and Southern sympathizers. This division is demonstrated at the dance in Chapter 2: When Mr. Attabury makes up lyrics about Jeff Davis being the president and Abraham Lincoln being a fool, the Southern sympathizers cheer, and the Northern sympathizers boo. Song lyrics and plays are a motif that reflects the novel’s political climate and its characters’ emotional states.
After the novel establishes what life looks like for the Pruitt family in the small town of Grand Tower, Delphine and Calinda step off the steamboat and change the Pruitts’ lives. Delphine is immediately characterized as a performer. She is dressed more richly than anyone Tilly has ever seen; her hair is perfectly curled, and her attitude and demeanor are designed to capture attention. She tells the crowd her story as if it were a drama, making Tilly wonder if Delphine truly is an actress. This highlights a core tenant of Delphine’s character: She was born and bred to perform. Her survival depended on how she was perceived and accepted. Calinda, on the other hand, remains in the shadows. She does not speak to or acknowledge anyone besides Delphine. When Tilly first sees her, Calinda is burdened with boxes and trunks that evidently belong to Delphine. Tilly can see only Calinda’s tignon—head covering—and the shade of her skin, and she assumes Calinda is enslaved by Delphine. Mama invites Delphine and Calinda to stay with the Pruitt family, which is the inciting incident that changes the course of the book and the characters’ lives.
The author uses descriptive language to depict Grand Tower and make the characters feel real. For example, even in her narration, Tilly speaks in a southern dialect. She says, “By the time Noah come in from the pump, we pretty nearly had supper on the table” (25). Her nonstandard grammar and characteristic phrasing reflect her level of education and her upbringing. Similarly, Delphine frequently slips into French, reflecting her origins in New Orleans. These stylistic choices ground the characters in historical accuracy and add authenticity to the story.
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