‘Well then, my Alice, I will try, but I cannot tell it in the pretty and clever way it is told in French. It was thus: One cold stormy October, a grasshopper, who had skipped and chirped in the sun all through the summer time, came to an ant, and said, “Good Mrs. Ant, you have such a large store of corn and seed in your hill, will you spare me a little, for I am very hungry?”’
‘Now, though the ant was very industrious I am afraid that she was not very charitable, or perhaps she thought it was useless to feed lazy people who will not work; so she answered and said, “Pray, Mrs. Grasshopper, what did you do all the summer, while I was working hard, and laying in a store to keep my children through the winter?”’
‘“Oh, in summer I sang and chirped all the day long,” replied the grasshopper.
‘“Then I advise you,” said the ant, “to dance now;” and the ant went into her house in her hill, and left the grasshopper to die.
‘You know, both of you, what an ant-hill is, do not you?’
‘Yes, grandmamma, I remember those little mounds, which I wanted to kick to pieces to make the ants run about, and you would not let me, and told me that it was cruel. Now I understand that those ant-hills are the ants’ houses, where they live and lay up their food for the winter.’
‘You are quite right. Here in England the ant-hills are small, but in other countries they are as high as you are. When I first saw them in Russia, I could not believe that they were ant-hills; and the ants are very little larger than those here, and yet they can collect such quantities of earth and leaves, and can raise up such pyramids for their houses.’
‘The ants are not so good as the bees; they do not make anything for us, like those nice busy bees,’ said Alice. ‘I do not like them; and, besides, the ant was very cross to the poor grasshopper.’
‘The ant was certainly very uncharitable; but all animals act only in accordance with God’s laws. This is a fable to show the difference between industrious and idle people. God has taught all creatures who are to live through the winter, to labour and lay up stores; but the grasshopper and butterflies who flutter in the sunshine, and many other insects, by God’s will are made to live only for a short time, and therefore do not need to store food like the ant and the bee.
‘The industrious ant serves in the fable to show us that we ought all to work, and you know from the Bible, that God has ordained that man should earn his bread in the sweat of his brow, which means by working. The poor man works, or ought to work, with his hands, the gentleman, or the educated man, with his head; but work is ordered for all—for the queen in her palace, and for little children at school.’