A Day's Wait

"A Day's Wait" is a short story by Ernest Hemingway published in his 1933 short story collection Winner Take Nothing about a nine-year-old boy who is sick during a cold winter.^{[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]}

The story focuses on the boy and his father who calls him Schatz (German, meaning darling). When the boy gets the flu, a doctor is called in and recommends three different medicines and tells the boy's father that his temperature is 102 degrees Fahrenheit. He is very quiet and depressed, finally asking when he will die; he had thought that a 102 degree temperature was lethal because he heard in France (where Celsius is used) that one cannot live with a temperature over 37 degrees. When the father explains to him the difference in scales, the boy slowly relaxes, and the next day, "he cried very easily at little things that were of no importance."

The story mainly signifies the boy's misunderstanding leading to many changes in his own mind.

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