The old farmer, Moses Ebrams, was looking for cows that had gone somewhere, when he found a strange creature in the bushes. It was brilliant, green, with purple spots and stank throughout the neighborhood. And it was moaning softly - "just like the wind howled sadly under the wide eaves of the house."

The creature was suffering, and Mose, whatever the neighbors said about him, was not one of those who would leave the suffering creature without help. For some time he thought and gained courage.

However, under such circumstances, mediocre courage alone is not enough. Here you need courage reckless.

The stench emanating from the creature did not bother the farmer too much. Mose's wife died about ten years ago, and since then he lived alone on a neglected farm, raking heaps of garbage from the house once a year.

Gathering his spirit, Mose touched the creature and was surprised to find that it was warm, hard and clean, like a green stalk of corn. Pulling the sufferer out of the thicket, Mose found that his body was crowned by a thickening surrounded by a fringe of thin worm-like tentacles, with no eyes or mouth.

It seemed to the farmer that it was these “worms" that made a mournful howl, and he went cold with fear.

Mose was stubborn. Stubborn and much indifferent. But not to a suffering living being.

Overpowering himself, he raised a creature that turned out to be very light, and carried it to the farm. Along the way, it seemed to Mose that the creature pressed against him like a frightened and hungry child.

Putting the creature in his bed and doing all the housework, Mose began to ponder how to help him. He even thought it was sickening to have to ask for help, but then he put himself in the place of a creature who was in trouble in a foreign land, and called a local doctor.

Then Mose went to the clearing, where he found a creature - suddenly there are still wounded there. But he found only a structure stuck in a hazel, similar to a huge bird cage.

Mose did not doubt for a moment that the creature that was now lying on his bed near the stove appeared here in this unprecedented wicker structure.

Soon the doctor arrived. He looked at the creature in amazement and said that he could not help him, because it was not a man or even an animal. According to the doctor, most of all the creature resembled a plant.

Mose told how it all happened without a word about the cell. The doctor advised to report the matter to Madison University - the scientists there would probably want to examine it.

Mose paid the doctor a silver dollar - he believed that "there was something illegal in paper money" and with rare obstinacy saved silver.

The doctor has left. Mose was very sorry that no one could help such a sick creature. He sat by the bed, looked at the creature, "and in it suddenly flashed an almost insane hope that it would recover and live with it."

Mose hoped that it would be so, because even now the former loneliness was no longer felt in the house.

The old man only now realized how lonely he was in his house. His last loss was the death of his beloved dog. Mose did not dare to take a new dog, because it is impossible to replace an old friend. He also did not get cats - they reminded him of his wife, who loved them.

So he was left alone with his stubbornness and silver dollars. Under the floor of the living room, the farmer kept a pot full of silver coins that no one knew. Mouz was pleased to think that he had spent all, because the neighbors believed that all his silver was stored in a cigar box.

Mose fell asleep sitting on a chair, and when he woke up, the stranger was dead and even began to dry out like a corn stalk left in the field after harvesting. Mose decided to bury the creature humanly, shaved, put on the only decent suit and went to the city. But the owner of the funeral home refused to bury not a person, and the pastor did not want to read a prayer over his grave.

Mose went down from the hill to his car and drove home, thinking along the way about what kind of cattle there are among people.

Returning to the farm, Mose buried the creature in the corner of the garden. He did not have a coffin board, and the farmer wrapped the stranger in an old tablecloth.

Mose really wanted to keep something for the memory of the alien. On his body, he found something like a pocket in which a smoky glass ball lay. Turning the ball in his hands, Mose put it back.

Having buried the creature, Mose pulled out a cage from the bushes in which he flew in and hid it in the far corner of the garage. Then he plowed the whole garden so that no one could find the alien's grave.

Meanwhile, the news of the stranger spread throughout the district. People began to visit Mose's farm, but the farmer did not show the grave to the sheriff, nor to the journalist, nor to the president of the Flying Saucer Club.

He had a short conversation with everyone, so they soon left him alone, and he continued to cultivate his land, and the house was still lonely.

One day, Mose discovered that a strange plant, similar to rabbit cabbage, had grown on the creature’s grave. Mose did not pull it out, and one fine morning found a plant at his door. It was the same creature, but not sick, but young and full of strength. It looked like a dead alien, like a son to a father.

Mose was glad that the creature had returned - now he had someone to talk to, although it could not answer. The stranger found his cage in the garage, and the farmer helped him align the wrinkled rods. Then the creature attempted to repair what Moses considered the engine. He needed a metal that was not found in the farmer’s garage, and he was delighted.

Now the creature will have to stay with him, and he will have someone to talk to, and loneliness will leave his house.

The next morning, Mose accidentally knocked over a cigar box in which he held a portion of silver dollars. It immediately became clear that it was silver that the alien needed. But there wasn’t enough dollars out of the box to fix the engine, and Mouz had to get a pot from under the floor.

The silver was melted, and the alien poured it into the engine cells. At night, Moses was "flooded with amazing thoughts." He presented loneliness more terrible than his own. Loneliness of a creature lost in the interstellar desert. The farmer realized that these were creature thoughts, and decided to take offense at him.

In the morning, the alien flew away. Saying goodbye, he presented Mose with a familiar glass ball. Only the ball of the deceased creature was also dead, dull, "and in this the living reflection of a distant fire flickered." Mose put the ball in his pocket, and he felt good and joyful.

In the bottomless depths of the universe lonely and dreary without a Friend. Who knows when it will be possible to find another.

The stranger did not regret his action. Perhaps he acted unreasonably, but the old savage was kind and really wanted to help, and he had nothing more to leave him as a keepsake.