Now, make yourself comfortable and cozy and listen.
After the sneering Ant had banged the door in his face, Grasshopper Green felt, as you may imagine, miserable, forlorn and friendless.
It was growing dark. He turned up the collar of his threadbare claw-hammer coat and shuffled along over the frozen ground, scarcely noticing where his benumbed feet were taking him.
He tried wrapping himself in a fallen leaf; it was red and looked as though it might be warm. But, alas! it proved to be a very thin covering against the biting, icy wind.
He tried to cheer himself up by playing on his little fiddle, but his fingers were too cold to play lively, cheerful tunes.
At last, feeling too chilled and hungry and discouraged to go any further, he sank down at the foot of an old apple tree. This was some protection at least from the wintry blasts which, by now, were moaning, "Whoo-ooh-whee-eeeh!" among the bare branches in a very disheartening way.
Poor Grasshopper Green wrapped his leaf cape tightly about him and, in spite of his chattering teeth, finally fell into an uneasy sleep.
He dreamed that he was wandering over an immense field of ice. Suddenly there appeared before him a little red table, upon which was a large yellow bowl of steaming, fragrant broth! Beside the table stood a chair, over the back of which was thrown a thick, fur-lined coat.
Just as he reached for the coat, he heard a terrific howling, and the next moment a gigantic hand had swept past him, snatching away the coat and the soup, and so terrifying Grasshopper Green that he fell over backward—and awoke.