[Physicist]

I have a sneaking suspicion you're right...of course, whatever story I'm thinking of, I'm sure I was maybe twelve at the time I read it.

Ah, twelve. The Golden Age of Science Fiction.

[RightWingAtheist]

It's definitely Leinster's story, which has been very widely anthologized. If you have a copy of The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, it's in there, along with Stanley Weibanum's "A Martian Odyssey", probably the classic story of alien contact.