[Illustration: THE ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER.]
In the winter season, a commonwealth of Ants was busily employed in the
management and preservation of their corn; which they exposed to the air
in heaps round about the avenues of their little country habitation. A
Grasshopper, who had chanced to outlive the summer, and was ready to
starve with cold and hunger, approached them with great humility, and
begged that they would relieve his necessity, with one grain of wheat or
rye. One of the Ants asked him, how he had disposed of his time in
summer, that he had not taken pains, and laid in a stock, as they had
done?--'Alas, gentlemen,' says he, 'I passed away the time merrily and
pleasantly, in drinking, singing, and dancing, and never once thought
of winter.'--'If that be the case,' replied the Ant, laughing, 'all I
have to say is, that they who drink, sing, and dance in the summer, must
starve in winter.'