The narrator father shows his love for his son in several different ways in Ernest Hemingway's story “A Day's Wait.” First, the father reveals his love through his calm concern over his son's illness. He knows that Schatz is sick, but he does not alarm the boy. He merely tells him to go up to bed and then calls the doctor. He doesn't get upset or agitated, for he doesn't want to frighten his son. Yet the father is still quite concerned, as his conversation with the doctor shows. He needs the doctor's reassurance that his son will be just fine, even though he downplays the illness when he speaks to Schatz.
Further, the father does his best to comfort his sick son even though he doesn't understand the boy's strange response to his illness. The father reads to Schatz out of the Book of Pirates ,...
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which appears to be one of the boy's favorites, but the father is concerned that Schatz is not responding as he usually does. He does not even seem to be following the words. The father remains with his son all morning, assuring Schatz that he doesn't mind (even though he doesn't know why the boy is worried about that).
When the father returns from his brief time of hunting, he is surprised to discover that Schatz doesn't want anyone to enter his room. His father goes right in anyway, again showing his love for the boy, takes his temperature and then sits down to try reading to him again. Pretty soon, Schatz reveals his worry. He thinks he is going to die because his temperature is 102 degrees, and a boy at school said that no one can survive over 44 degrees.
To the father's credit, and again revealing his love, he doesn't laugh at this (although he probably wants to). Instead, he sympathetically says, “You poor Schatz,” and explains the difference between Fahrenheit and Celsius. The father gives his son exactly what he needs at that moment, sympathy and an explanation, because he loves the boy.