How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
"I been in this house nearly my whole life, Tom, and I'm going to stay in it. It seems sort of lonesome to you, I guess. But I've got things to think about. There ain't such a thing as an empty room here any more."
[….]
They sat a while over their cups at the kitchen table. Tom remembered how her yellow cat had sat on the table beside her cup and sipped a little tea when she offered him some. Perhaps that was a thing she remembered there, too; and suddenly to Tom it seemed the cat actually was there. (20.20)
Tom thinks Mrs. Breen must be very lonely in her house all by herself, but Mrs. Breen experiences it very differently. All the rooms are filled with memories, which are as real to her as the present. Is she living too much in the past, or does she have a point?
Quote #5
Sure, I remember your grandpa, Tom. Him and me we used to go bird shooting back in those days. Like as not we had Erlo Ackerman along with us with his old orange-spot setter dog. Erlo was quite a sport till his bottom half widened out on him and he grew his pomposity so big. (28.3)
Like Erlo Ackerman, Billy-Bob Baxter (the speaker here) knew Tom's grandfather. In fact, all three of them used to pal around. Also like Erlo, Billy-Bob thinks fondly of Chick. Though Tom isn't at all like Chick in character, you get the idea that the older men who remember Chick might feel like they're connected to Tom based on their personal history. Tom at least gives them the opportunity to remember times from their past.
Quote #6
They would fell [a tree for a supporting post] right away so it would have plenty of time to season, and Birdy would square it himself. He had his father's broadax, which he had used some in his time. He couldn't do the kind of job his father did, he told Tom diffidently, but he could make it square enough. (31.9)
There's quite a bit of history going into Tom's barn. The barn belonged to Bert Breen; Birdy uses his father's ax for construction on it; Mr. Hook gives Tom tools from his family, too, along with a book his father once owned. Birdy often expresses the idea that passing things (including knowledge) through generations is very valuable. If it's true for barns, it's true for people, too.