Jerome Bixby 24 min read

It works once or twice a week, never more, a chain with a handle hung where city folk will reach up and pull without thinking, for a man's joke that brings grins to every fellow around.

Jerome Bixby's 1954 story is a wry first-contact and social-SF tale with a rural sense of humor. Genial, clever golden-age SF. Read it for a warm, funny small-town story where a storekeeper's running practical joke and something stranger come together in an unexpectedly charming way.

In its time

Published in 1954, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

24 min read (a short story, a single idea, delivered and gone).

Illustrated by

W. E. Terry