Ernest Hemingway · 1924
Questions on the text, each answered in the book’s own words, with the minute you hear it.
Challenge a friend: 123BookWarThe text
Answer The young Indian
“The young Indian shoved the camp boat off and got in to row Uncle George.”
Answer Cigars
“Uncle George gave both the Indians cigars.”
Answer An old woman
“In the shanty nearest the road there was a light in the window. An old woman stood in the doorway holding a lamp.”
Answer Two days
“Inside on a wooden bunk lay a young Indian woman. She had been trying to have her baby for two days.”
Answer He cut his foot with an ax
“In the upper bunk was her husband. He had cut his foot very badly with an ax three days before. He was smoking a pipe.”
Answer He hasn’t any anaesthetic
“No. I haven't any anaesthetic,” his father said. “But her screams are not important. I don't hear them because they are not important.”
Answer Uncle George and three Indian men
“Later when he started to operate Uncle George and three Indian men held the woman still.”
Answer The basin
“Nick held the basin for his father. It all took a long time.”
Answer An interne
“See, it's a boy, Nick,” he said. “How do you like being an interne?”
Answer St. Ignace
“The nurse should be here from St. Ignace by noon and she'll bring everything we need.”
Answer Nine-foot, tapered gut leaders
“Doing a Caesarian with a jack-knife and sewing it up with nine-foot, tapered gut leaders.”
Answer Edge up, in the blankets
“His head rested on his left arm. The open razor lay, edge up, in the blankets.”
Answer “I don't know, Nick. He couldn't stand things, I guess.”
“I don't know, Nick. He couldn't stand things, I guess.”
Answer A bass
“The sun was coming up over the hills. A bass jumped, making a circle in the water.”
Answer His father
“They were seated in the boat, Nick in the stern, his father rowing.”
“Indian Camp,” Transatlantic Review, Paris, April 1924; collected in In Our Time, 1925. Public domain in the United States.