THE Ants and the Grasshoppers lived together in the great field. The
Ants were busy all the time gathering a store of grain to lay by for
winter use. They gave themselves so little pleasure that their merry
neighbors, the Grasshoppers, began at last to take scarcely any notice
of them.
When the frost came, it put an end to the work of the Ants and the
chirping and merrymaking of the Grasshoppers. But one fine winter’s
day, when the Ants were employed in spreading their grain in the sun to
dry, a Grasshopper, who was nearly perishing with hunger, chanced to
pass by.
“Good day to you, kind neighbor,” said she; “will you not lend me a
little food? I will certainly pay you before this time next year.”
“How does it happen that you have no food of your own?” asked an old
Ant. “There was an abundance in the field where we lived side by side
all summer, and your people seemed to be active enough. What were you
doing, pray?”
“Oh,” said the Grasshopper, forgetting his hunger, “I sang all the day
long, and all the night, too.”
“Well, then,” interrupted the Ant, “I must not deprive my own family
for you. If Grasshoppers find it so gay to sing away the summer, they
must starve in winter,” and she went on with her work, all the while
singing the old song, “We ants never borrow; we ants never lend.”