"A Day's Wait"

In the short story, "A Day's Wait" by Earnest Hemmingway, a nine year-old boy finds himself waking up early in the morning with a fever. "You go up to bed," his father said, "you're sick." "I'm alright," the boy said. When the doctor arrived that day, he finds the boy to have a temperature of one hundred and two. He tells the father that his son will be fine; he just needs some rest and medication. At this point, the father tries to convince the boy that he should sleep, but all he tells his father is to leave him so he doesn't have to be bothered. So the father goes out to hunt. He shoots two quail and misses five. He then calls it a day and decides he was happy there were so many left to find on another day.
Back at home, he finds the boy in the exact position he had left him earlier that day. He then realizes that something must be wrong. He takes the boy's temperature again and finds it to be one hundred and two and four tenths. Then, he sees the fear in his son's eyes. All of a sudden the words spill out. "What time do you think I'm going to die?" the boy says. "At school in France the boys told me you can't live with forty-four degrees. I've got one hundred and two." The father is relieved. He explains the difference between the units. The boy relaxes and is suddenly a little better.