Richard Herrick, a young man with "much money, and no sense of humor," responds to romantic rejection by becoming a devotee of nature. He converts an abandoned Connecticut farm into a meticulously planned estate featuring model dairies, Italian gardens, and a two-hundred-acre game preserve. The preserve, his special domain, is described as a wilderness of caves, chasms, and laurel, barricaded by fallen trees and moss-covered rocks. Herrick sees himself as an overlord to the resident squirrels, rabbits, and raccoons, but his efforts to observe them are met with flight and terror. The story's tension arises from the gap between Herrick's idealized view of nature and the actual behavior of its creatures.

The Nature of Herrick's Devotion

Herrick's turn to nature is framed as a substitute for romantic love. He tells his friends that nature "does not disappoint you" and offers no heart-aches, unlike the woman who married another. Yet his approach is anything but natural: he constructs a fenced preserve, carries a gun to protect his favorites, and wishes he could call the fleeing animals back. The narrator notes that Herrick looked upon the animals "not as his tenants but as his guests," a sentiment that underscores his desire for control and companionship. His friend Jackson, of a "frivolous disposition," counters that he would rather look at a girl's eyes than the Lakes of Killarney, highlighting the contrast between human connection and Herrick's managed landscape.

The Bear Experiment and Its Observers

The central episode involves three bears that Herrick releases into his preserve. As the bears hesitate at the fence, turning their heads "as though fearful they would be stopped," Herrick locks himself inside to follow them. He reports back that the bears drank from streams, explored hollow trees, and scratched for acorns "with more obvious delight" than schoolchildren at recess. The house party's reactions vary: Miss Waring finds Herrick's simplicity kind but resents his affection for animals, while Kelly mocks the bears' lack of "silk coverlet or a pillow-sham." Herrick, unruffled, dismisses Kelly as lacking imagination. The scene exposes the tension between Herrick's earnestness and the social world's irony.

Voice and Narrative Distance

Davis maintains a detached, slightly ironic tone throughout. The opening sentence—"Richard Herrick was a young man with a gentle disposition, much money, and no sense of humor"—sets up a character ripe for gentle satire. The narrator reports Herrick's views without endorsement, allowing the reader to see the absurdity in his model farm and his belief that he can understand wild animals. Dialogue reveals character: Herrick's earnest declarations contrast with Jackson's mockery and Kelly's jeers. The story's structure, moving from Herrick's philosophy to the bear experiment to the social aftermath, keeps the focus on the collision between his ideals and reality. The excerpts do not reveal the story's ending, but the pattern of misunderstanding is clear.

Readers may find the story's humor in the gap between Herrick's self-seriousness and the world's indifference. Davis does not mock nature itself but the attempt to possess it through fences and categories. Pay attention to how the narrator's deadpan delivery shapes the comedy, and consider whether Herrick's final experiment—releasing the bears—represents a genuine step toward understanding or merely a more elaborate form of control.