How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
Thinking about just where he would set [the barn] and how it was going to look when he had the frame up and the siding on made him take a new look at their house, and he saw for the first time how shabby and run-down looking it was, with shingles missing from the roof, and here and there split clapboards, the front steps sagging, and the paint so nearly weathered away it was hard to tell what color the house had been in the first place. He made his mind up that before he put up the barn he would have to get the house in shape, and that was what he worked at during that summer, outside of his hours at Ackerman and Hook's. (27.2)
This passage directly contrasts Tom with his father. Tom's father never made any repairs on the house. In fact, Tom has to buy all the supplies to do the repairs because there are none around from his father's days there. What a lazybones. Tom sees that a good property owner—and in this case, a good man—should take care of his property, have pride in what is his, and work hard, even if that means pulling nights and weekends after his day job.
Quote #8
Mr. Massey introduced Birdy to them.
"Birdy Morris is the man who built this barn in the first place. For Bert Breen, up on the sand flats by the Forestport line. He's helped Tom Dolan take it down and bring it here. I'd say he was the man to be caller for us."
Lumberjacks didn't step to one side for anybody, but they recognized boss material when they met it, and though Birdy didn't look like much, with his humped should and all, they agreed he ought to be their man. (46.16-18)
There's more to being a man than brute strength and looking like a Disney prince. There's "boss material." In this case, it defies the odds: Birdy has a physical deformity and he's also old and poor, so he's not exactly your typical bodybuilder (or even barn-builder). But, he has knowledge and experience, which the other men easily recognize. That's the kind of man they want as their leader. What do you think "boss material" looks like today, when it isn't limited to men anymore?
Quote #9
The men helped themselves to stacks of sandwiches, to hunks of cheese, to cherry or blueberry or apple pie, and drank quantities of coffee and switchel. [….] They kept in separate groups, the lumberjacks sitting by themselves in the shade of the house, the farmers under the mow floor. The Moucheaud brothers circulated from one group to the other. Working at the feed mill and living in Forestport made them parties of both worlds. Tom, feeling himself the host, tried to do the same, but he felt shy among the lumberjacks and found little to say to them. (47.7)
In rural places in the early 1900s, nothing brought men together like a good ol' barn-raising. Finding himself in a crowd of different types of men, Tom's not 100% comfortable in his own skin yet, and he feels a little awk around the burly lumberjacks. But he's at least starting to get out there and circulate in their world.