The Story
In the warm and golden days of summer, when the fields were full of ripening grain and the sun stayed long in the sky, an ant worked without rest from morning until evening.
Back and forth she went from field to anthill, carrying grains of wheat and barley that were many times her own weight, never stopping, never resting. The other ants worked alongside her, a long and purposeful line that moved like a dark thread through the grass. Their underground storerooms grew fuller with every passing day.
A grasshopper watched all this industry with great amusement. He lounged in the sunlight on a broad flat stone, rubbing his hind legs together to make his cheerful chirping song. He ate whatever leaf or berry was nearest, drank the dew from the grass tips, and stretched himself in the afternoon warmth with a satisfied sigh.
"Come and rest with me," called the grasshopper one bright morning as the ant labored past beneath a grain almost too large to carry. "The summer is long and beautiful. Why spend it working?"
"I am storing food for the winter," said the ant, without pausing.
"The winter!" laughed the grasshopper. "The winter is months away. There is food everywhere. Eat, rest, enjoy the sun." And he began to play his music again, his long legs sawing out a merry tune.
The ant said nothing more and went on her way.
All through the summer and into the autumn, the grasshopper played. He sang to the wheat and the barley and the late-blooming flowers. He watched the swallows flying south and thought them silly creatures in a hurry. The mornings grew cooler and the evenings darker, but still there was food to be found and song to be sung, and the grasshopper gave no thought to what lay ahead.
Then, one morning, he woke to find the world had changed in the night. The frost had come. The fields were silver and stiff. The leaves that had sheltered him had fallen and shriveled. Every berry was gone, every seed buried under ice.
The grasshopper was cold and hungry. He hopped slowly across the frozen ground, his song silent at last, until he found himself at the entrance to the ant's hill, from which rose the warm smell of stored grain.
"Please," said the grasshopper, "I have nothing. Will you share with me?"
The ant paused at the entrance and looked at him for a long moment.
"All summer you played while I worked," she said quietly. "You had the same summer I did. I chose to prepare; you chose to play." She was not cruel — she was simply honest. "You must make do as best you can. But let this winter teach you what I could not."
And the grasshopper, cold and chastened, huddled in what shelter he could find, and resolved that if another summer ever came, he would not waste a single golden day of it.