Clifford Simak - Grotto of the Dancing Deer - And Other Stories

And so help me Hannah, Joe sat down beside him and before you could count to three started telling his life story.

“Lester,” Wilbur said, “be sure you get this down.”

I beat it back into the house and had a quick one to settle my stomach before I tackled breakfast.

I didn’t feel like eating, but I knew I had to. I got out some eggs and bacon and wondered what I would feed Wilbur. For I suddenly remembered how his metabolism couldn’t stand liquor, and if it couldn’t take good whisky, there seemed very little chance that it would take eggs and bacon.

As I was finishing my breakfast, Higman Morris came busting through the back door and straight into the kitchen. Higgy is our mayor, a pillar of the church, a member of the school board and a director of the bank, and he is a big stuffed shirt.

“Sam,” he yelled at me, “this town has taken a lot from you. We have put up with your drinking and your general shiftlessness and your lack of public spirit. But this is too much!”

I wiped some egg off my chin. “What is too much?”

Higgy almost strangled, he was so irritated. “This public exhibition. This three-ring circus! This nuisance! And on a Sunday, too!”

“Oh,” I said, “you mean Wilbur and his robot.”

“There’s a crowd collecting out in front and I’ve had a dozen calls, and Joe is sitting out there with this—this—”

“Alien,” I supplied.

“And they’re bawling on one another’s shoulders like a pair of three-year-olds and … Alien!”

“Sure,” I said. “What did you think he was?”

Higgy reached out a shaky hand and pulled out a chair and fell weakly into it. “Samuel,” he said slowly, “give it to me once again. I don’t think I heard you right.”

“Wilbur is an alien,” I told him, “from some other world. He and his robot came here to listen to sad stories.”

“Sad stories?”

“Sure. He likes sad stories. Some people like them happy and others like them dirty. He just likes them sad.”

“If he is an alien,” said Higgy, talking to himself.

“He’s one, sure enough,” I said.

“Sam, you’re sure of this?”

“I am.”

Higgy got excited. “Don’t you appreciate what this means to Millville? This little town of ours—the first place on all of Earth that an alien visited!”

I wished he would shut up and get out so I could have an after breakfast drink. Higgy didn’t drink, especially on Sundays. He’d have been horrified.

“The world will beat a pathway to our door!” he shouted. He got out of the chair and started for the living room. “I must extend my official welcome.”

I trotted along behind him, for this was one I didn’t want to miss.

Joe had left and Wilbur was sitting alone on the stoop and I could see that he already had on a sort of edge.

Higgy stood in front of him and thrust out his chest and held out his hand and said, in his best official manner: “I am the mayor of Millville and I take great pleasure in extending to you our sincerest welcome.”

Wilbur shook hands with him and then he said: “Being the mayor of a city must be something of a burden and a great responsibility. I wonder that you bear up under it.”

“Well, there are times …” said Higgy.

“But I can see that you are the kind of man whose main concern is the welfare of his fellow creatures and as such, quite naturally, you become the unfortunate target of outrageous and ungrateful actions.”

Higgy sat down ponderously on the stoop. “Sir,” he said to Wilbur, “you would not believe all I must put up with.”

“Lester,” said Wilbur, “see that you get this down.”

I went back into the house. I couldn’t stomach it.

There was quite a crowd standing out there in the road—Jake Ellis, the junkman, and Don Myers, who ran the Jolly Miller, and a lot of others. And there, shoved into the background and sort of peering out, was the Widow Frye. People were on their way to church and they’d stop and look and then go on again, but others would come and take their place, and the crowd was getting bigger instead of thinning out.

I went out to the kitchen and had my after-breakfast drink and did the dishes and wondered once again what I would feed Wilbur. Although, at the moment, he didn’t seem to be too interested in food.

Then I went into the living room and sat down in the rocking chair and kicked off my shoes. I sat there wiggling my toes and thinking about what a screwy thing it was that Wilbur should get drunk on sadness instead of good red liquor.

The day was warm and I was wore out and the rocking must have helped to put me fast asleep, for suddenly I woke up and there was someone in the room. I didn’t see who it was right off, but I knew someone was there.

It was the Widow Frye. She was all dressed up for Sunday, and after all those years of passing my house on the opposite side of the street and never looking at it, as if the sight of it or me might contaminate her—after all these years, there she was all dressed up and smiling. And me sitting there with all my whiskers on and my shoes off.

“Samuel,” said the Widow Frye, “I couldn’t help but tell you. I think your Mr. Wilbur is simply wonderful.”

“He’s an alien,” I said. I had just woke up and was considerable befuddled.

“I don’t care what he is,” said the Widow Frye. “He is such a gentleman and so sympathetic. Not in the least like a lot of people in this horrid town.”

I got to my feet and I didn’t know exactly what to do. She’d caught me off my guard and at a terrible disadvantage. Of all people in the world, she was the last I would have expected to come into my house.

I almost offered her a drink, but caught myself just in time.

“You been talking to him?” I asked lamely.

“Me and everybody else,” said the Widow Frye. “And he has a way with him. You tell him your troubles and they seem to go away. There’s a lot of people waiting for their turn.”

“Well,” I told her, “I am glad to hear you say that. How’s he standing up under all this?”

The Widow Frye moved closer and dropped her voice to a whisper. “I think he’s getting tired. I would say—well, I’d say he was intoxicated if I didn’t know better.”

I took a quick look at the clock.

“Holy smoke!” I yelled.

It was almost four o’clock. Wilbur had been out there six or seven hours, lapping up all the sadness this village could dish out. By now he should be stiff clear up to his eyebrows.

I busted out the door and he was sitting on the stoop and tears were running down his face and he was listening to Jack Ritter—and Old Jack was the biggest liar in all of seven counties. He was just making up this stuff he was telling Wilbur.

“Sorry, Jack,” I said, pulling Wilbur to his feet.

“But I was just telling him …”

“Go on home,” I hollered, “you and the others. You got him all tired out.”

“Mr. Sam,” said Lester, “I am glad you came. He wouldn’t listen to me.”

The Widow Frye held the door open and I got Wilbur in and put him in my bed, where he could sleep it off.

When I came back, the Widow Frye was waiting. “I was just thinking, Samuel,” she said. “I am having chicken for supper and there is more than I can eat. I wonder if you’d like to come on over.”

I couldn’t say nothing for a moment. Then I shook my head.

“Thanks just the same,” I said, “but I have to stay and watch over Wilbur. He won’t pay attention to the robot.”

The Widow Frye was disappointed. “Some other time?”

“Yeah, some other time.”

I went out after she was gone and invited Lester in.

“Can you sit down,” I asked, “or do you have to stand?”