The story takes place in a forest around sunset. The specific place and time period is not known to the reader. The main characters are presented in a story before this one, so their personalities and backgrounds are known more to the reader than the story reflects.
Nick, his father and Uncle George are the only three persons presented, and it is told in Nicks point of view, however it is a omniscient narrator.
The story begins with Nick laying in a tent while his father and uncle are sailing out on the lake to get supper. His father, who seems a little concerned for his son, tells Nick, that if he is frightened, he can fire three shots from the riffle. As soon as they take off, Nick feels very alone. He feels as if the woods are going to swallow him if it could. Also, it is way too quiet. Nicks hopes that an owl or a fox would make a sound, just so he would know that there was something out there. Instead of laying in a whole lot of nothing. Line 22 p. 551:“Nick felt if he could only hear a fox bark or an owl or anything he would be all right” He then fires three shots.
Out on the lake the father and Uncle are talking bad about Nick. It seems that Uncle George thinks very little of Nick, line 10 p. 552: “Damn that kid... He probably has the heebie-jeebies or something”. It is like he thinks of Nick as a scared little child, who cannot handle the task being given by the father. The father however defends Nick, line 15 p. 552: “Oh, well. He is pretty small”, as if he thinks of Nick as more of an equal, but still the child he is. The father sort of accepts Nicks’s age, instead of trying to make him a man right away, compared to Uncle George.
It seems as if there is something unsaid between the father and Uncle George. George wants Nick to grow up and be the man he is ought to be. Nick as in the middle of being a child and a grown up at the same time, all to please his father. I think he wants to