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Dark Nation
05-31-2012, 09:31 AM
For some reason, I suddenly recall a short story I read in school once and now I can't get the thing out of my head. I was hoping someone here may have heard of it and remember the title.

The story is about an farmer that has an alien crash land on his farm. The farmer goes to investigate the crash and finds the alien dead. He decides to give it a proper burial. A short time after this, the alien appears at his door (the farmer may have noticed some sort of plant growing from the grave site before this). The farmer takes the alien in while the alien is trying to repair his spacecraft. The farmer gets used to having the alien around. The alien is getting frustrated because he can't finish fixing his ship for some reason. The farmer and alien don't speak the same language, so any communication is limited to gestures. At one point, the farmer accidentally drops a silver dollar from his stash that he's been collecting over the years. The alien sees the coin and gets very excited. Silver is apparently what he needs to complete repairs and he starts trying to indicate how much he needs using he coin as reference (this many stacks of silver coins that are this high, etc). Finally, the farmer decides to help the alien and lets him have all of the silver dollars that he had saved. The alien fixes his ship and then leaves, I think.

Does any of this sound familiar to anyone. Anyone know the title of it?

Thanks!
DN

ctrl-alt-delete
05-31-2012, 02:28 PM
Admin me. Lol.

Mercy
06-05-2012, 09:03 PM
Would you be looking for "A Death in the House," by Clifford Simak? An old widower finds an alien on his property and uses up all his silver dollars helping the alien repair his ship after the alien dies/comes back.., at least that's about what I remember. It's in his "Best of" collection, I believe. The one with "Final Gentleman," if that helps.

-m.

Dark Nation
06-11-2012, 07:45 AM
Yes! That's it! Thanks, Mercy! :)