✨The story opens as a father discovers that his 9 year old boy, Schatz, has a fever.

✨ The father sends for the doctor and he diagnoses a mild case of influenza. As long as the fever doesn’t

go above 104 degrees, the doctor says that the boy will be fine.

✨The doctor leaves three different types of medication for the father to administer with instructions for
each. Schatz’s temperature was 102 degrees.

✨When the doctor leaves, the father reads to Schatz from a book about pirates but the boy is not paying attention and is staring fixedly at the foot of the bed.

✨ His father suggests he should try to get some sleep but Schatz says he would rather be awake. He also
says that his father needn’t stay in the room with him if he is bothered.

✨ His father says he isn’t bothered and after giving him his 11 o’clock dose of medication, the father goes
outside.

✨It is a wintry day with sleet frozen onto the countryside and the father takes the family’s Irish setter out
hunting along a frozen creek bed. Both man and dog fall more than once on the ice before they find a
covey of quail and kill two birds with difficulty due to the icy conditions.

✨ But he is happy to have found a covey of quail so close by and looks forward to hunting more birds in

the future. The father, pleased with his exploits, returns to the house.

✨ Upon returning home, he finds that Schatz has refused to let anyone into his room because he doesn’t
want anyone else to catch the flu.

✨ The father enters anyway and finds the boy still staring at the foot of the bed. He takes Schatz’s

temperature and finds it 102, as before.

✨ He tells Schatz his temperature is fine and he should not worry. Schatz says he’s not worrying, but he is
thinking.

✨His father gives him the next dose of medicine and the boy asks if it will do any good. His father assures

him that it will, but the boy still seems preoccupied.

✨ Suddenly, the boy asks his father that at what time he’s going to die. The father is startled and reassures

him that he isn’t going to die. The boy replies that he heard the doctor saying that his temperature was

102 degrees, and he learned from his classmates in France that a fever over 44 degrees is deadly. The

father realizes that his son has spent the whole day waiting to die.

✨ He explains to the boy that France and America use different thermometers and units of temperature,

just like they use different units of distance - miles and kilometers.

✨ The boy simply says “Oh,” but his whole body relaxes. The story ends with the father noting how the
next day the boycries very easily at little things that are of no importance.

Questions (To be done in C. W. Notebook)

1. When did the father first notice that Schatz was unwell?

2. Who is the narrator of the story?