Ernest Hemingway´s short story “A Day Wait” is about a nine-year-old boy who wakes up one morning with a fever. The boys father calls a doctor who takes the boys temperature. It is 102 degrees, diagnoses influenza. The boy, has been to school in France, does´nt know the difference between Fahrenheit und Centigrade, so he thought he died with a temperature of 102 degrees. At the school in France the boys had told him that the normal temperature was 37 degrees and nobody could live with 44 degrees. Being scared of dying, he doesn’t talk abput that with his father. Waiting all day he manages to stay calm and keep himself under control. He takes his medicine, but refuses to sleep. The father, finding the behaviour a luttle strange without realizing what is troubeling with his son. He even leaves him alone in the house and goes hunting for a while. In the evening he finally finds out about the boy’s suffering and explains the misunderstanding. The story contains little action, which is based on the conversation between father and son. The misunderstanding between them is simple and trivial but it contains tragic elements. Facing his imminent death with heroic indifference the boy is being fond of his father. The father is obviously a loving father but he is unable to understand his son’s suffering.