In lines 270-284, what does Gilbert’s selection of items tell us about the character?

Article 270-284: That night, by unspoken agreement, they all packed their treasures. Gilbert laid out his sailor suit—his father bought him a new one every year—and his book about time and space and stuffed a picnic blanket with Mrs. Curie’s preserves,
hardtack bread, jars of lemonade, and apples from the cellar.
Mrs. Curie—three-quarters deaf—slept through his raid.
Gilbert then went to his father’s study and took the spyglass
that had belonged to his grandfather, who had also been lost at sea. He opened the small oak box holding Grandad’s sextant, but as he’d never mastered it, he set it down. He took his father’s enormous silver-chased[5] turnip watch, and tried on his rain boots and discovered that they fit. The last time he’d tried them on, he could have gotten both feet into one of them. Time had passed without his noticing, but his feet had noticed.