THE ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER
There was once a foolish little grasshopper that spent all her time playing. Through the long summer and autumn she did nothing but sing from morning till night. So when winter came and the snow covered the ground, she hadn’t a morsel of food stored away in her house.
Soon she was so faint with hunger that she begged her neighbor, the ant, to give her something to eat. “I am starving,” she said; “give me a grain of wheat.”
“Why did you not save some grain at harvest time?” asked the ant. “There was plenty to be had. What were you doing?”
“I was singing,” answered the grasshopper. “I had no time for work.”
“Hoity toity!” cried the ant; “if you sang all summer you must dance hungry to bed in winter.”
—Æsop