The Ant and the Grasshopper

All through the warm summer days, a grasshopper fiddled and sang in the meadow, hopping from flower to flower without a single care.

Nearby, a line of ants marched back and forth, back and forth, carrying grains of wheat one by one toward their underground nest.

"Why work so hard on such a beautiful day?" the grasshopper called out, watching them struggle under the weight of their grain. "Come, sing with me instead!"

"We're storing food for winter," one ant answered without slowing down. "You might want to do the same."

The grasshopper laughed. "Winter is so far away. Why worry about it now, when the sun is warm and the music is so sweet?"

So the summer passed, day after golden day, with the grasshopper singing and the ants quietly, steadily working.

Autumn came, and still the grasshopper danced among the falling leaves, while the ants kept carrying grain, filling their stores deeper underground.

Then, almost overnight it seemed, the first frost arrived, and the meadow that had been full of flowers turned brown and bare.

The grasshopper looked around for food and found nothing at all - every seed and blade of grass had withered or been buried under snow.

Cold and hungry, he made his way to the ants' nest and knocked, shivering, at their door.

"Please," he said. "I have no food and nowhere warm to stay. Could you spare just a little of what you've gathered?"

The ants looked at each other, then at their neat rows of stored grain - enough for themselves, gathered through months of steady work.

"You sang all summer while we worked," said one ant. "Now would be a good time to dance, if that's what kept you fed."

But the ants were not unkind, and a full winter was still ahead. They made room by the fire and shared what they had, though they made sure the grasshopper understood exactly why they had it to share.

When spring came again, the grasshopper remembered that winter, and from then on, sang a little less and gathered a little more - not giving up his music, just making room, at last, for both.