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story identification - Man and boy left behind on damaged earth?


What is the name of the sci-fi story featuring an old man and boy who miss (on purpose in the man's case, accidentally in the boy's) the last shuttle leaving a destroyed, polluted earth?


I read it as a child, possibly in an anthology for elementary students. It could have been an excerpt of a longer work.


The man stays behind on purpose, and in the closing scene he is showing the boy how to dig up the concrete and plant a tree.




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