A Day's Wait

"A Day's Wait" is a short story by Ernest Hemingway which appears in "The Snows of Kilimanjaro", first printed in 1933.

Format of the Story

The story takes place in the course of one day and is only a few pages in length. It is narrated in first person by the father, but centers around the son.

Plot summary

The story focuses on a nine-year old boy named Schatz (term of endearment the father uses to address his son, which is a German term for affection) and his father. The boy gets the flu, and has a 102 degrees Fahrenheit temperature, and acts very strangely about it, much to the confusion of the father. In the end the boy asks when he will die, thinking that an 102 degree temperature will kill him because he heard in France (where Celsius is used) that one cannot live with a temperature over 44 degrees. The father then tells him that in America we use the Fahrenheit scale, so a 102 degree temperature does not mean certain death. This then calms the boy, and he finally drifts off to sleep.

References

"'