Horace Elisha Scudder

The Ant and the Grasshopper

On a cold, frosty day, an Ant was dragging out some of the corn which he had laid up in summer time, to dry it. A Grasshopper, half perishing with hunger, besought the Ant to give him a morsel of it to preserve his life. "What were you doing," asked the Ant, "this last summer?" "Oh," said the Grasshopper, "I was not idle. I kept singing all summer long." Said the Ant, laughing, and shutting up his granary. "Since you could sing all summer, you may dance all winter."