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Tom Creighton
Ed Turner is the Creighton family’s neighbor. Like Matt and Ellen, he is a subsistence farmer who supports himself and his family with the produce he raises on his own land. After John, Bill, Tom, Eb, and Shad (and some of Turner’s own sons) go to war and Matt has a heart attack, Ed takes on a mentorship role to young Jethro, supporting Jethro as he accepts ever greater responsibility for running the Creighton family farm.
Ed Turner Quotes in Across Five Aprils
The Across Five Aprils quotes below are all either spoken by Ed Turner or refer to Ed Turner. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 9
Quotes
“Looks like purty important mail you’re gettin’, Jethro,” Ed said quietly. His eyes were full of puzzled concern.
Jethro’s head sawm. This was the showdown; now, all the family, Ed Turner, and soon the whole neighborhood would know everything. In the few seconds that passed before he opened the envelope, he wished with all his heart that he had not meddled in the affairs of a country at war, that he had let Eb work out his own problems, that he, Jethro, were still a sheltered young boy who did the tasks his father set for him and shunned the idea that he dare think for himself. He looked at the faces around him, and they spun in a strange mist of color—black eyes and blue eyes, gray hair and gold and black, pink cheeks and pale ones and weather-beaten brown ones.
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 12
Quotes
Ed brought the boy’s letter down for Matt to read. In it the boy told of the burning of Columbia, of how the soldiers laughed as a great wind fanned the flames, of the loot carried off, of mirrors and pianos smashed, and of intimate family treasures scattered to the winds by men who seemed to have gone mad. […]
“What is this goin’ to do to an eighteen-year-old boy, Matt? Kin a lad come through weeks of this kind of actions without becomin’ a hardened man? Is human life goin’ to be forever cheap to him and decency somethin’ to mock at? […] these boys air goin’ to believe that they be heroes for lootin’ and burnin’, fer laughin’ at distress, fer smashin’ the helpless without pity. In some ways Sammy is more of a child than yore Jeth here; he goes with the crowd without thinkin.’ Mary and me has had to guard against that way of his.
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Ed Turner Quotes in Across Five Aprils
The Across Five Aprils quotes below are all either spoken by Ed Turner or refer to Ed Turner. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 9
Quotes
“Looks like purty important mail you’re gettin’, Jethro,” Ed said quietly. His eyes were full of puzzled concern.
Jethro’s head sawm. This was the showdown; now, all the family, Ed Turner, and soon the whole neighborhood would know everything. In the few seconds that passed before he opened the envelope, he wished with all his heart that he had not meddled in the affairs of a country at war, that he had let Eb work out his own problems, that he, Jethro, were still a sheltered young boy who did the tasks his father set for him and shunned the idea that he dare think for himself. He looked at the faces around him, and they spun in a strange mist of color—black eyes and blue eyes, gray hair and gold and black, pink cheeks and pale ones and weather-beaten brown ones.
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 12
Quotes
Ed brought the boy’s letter down for Matt to read. In it the boy told of the burning of Columbia, of how the soldiers laughed as a great wind fanned the flames, of the loot carried off, of mirrors and pianos smashed, and of intimate family treasures scattered to the winds by men who seemed to have gone mad. […]
“What is this goin’ to do to an eighteen-year-old boy, Matt? Kin a lad come through weeks of this kind of actions without becomin’ a hardened man? Is human life goin’ to be forever cheap to him and decency somethin’ to mock at? […] these boys air goin’ to believe that they be heroes for lootin’ and burnin’, fer laughin’ at distress, fer smashin’ the helpless without pity. In some ways Sammy is more of a child than yore Jeth here; he goes with the crowd without thinkin.’ Mary and me has had to guard against that way of his.
