In a Nutshell:
"A Day's Wait" was published in 1933 in his book The Snows of Kilimanjaro. "A Day's Wait" explores the process of waiting to die. A little boy, who is called Schatz by his father, is sick with influenza and believes that he is going to die. He waits and entire day before asking the question: how long do I have left? Schatz spent time in France and was told that one can not live with a temperature over forty four degrees. Because of Schatz's young age, he didn't make the connection that degrees Celsius is used in Europe while Fahrenheit is used other places, and that he wasn't going to die. Ernest Hemingway's tale is one of how misunderstandings can cause some major anxiety in a high stress environment.