The Ant and the Grasshopper

One winter day ants were spreading their corn to dry after long rains. A grasshopper came up, thin and cold, and begged for a few grains. “I am starving,” she said.

The ants paused, though stopping work was not their habit. “What did you do all summer?” they asked. “Why did you gather no store?”

“I was busy singing,” said the grasshopper. “I had no time.”

“If you sang through the summer,” the ants replied, “you had better dance through the winter.” They chuckled and went back to their corn.

About this fable

Vernon Jones calls this Aesop fable “The Grasshopper and the Ants”, and it appears in his 1912 translation with Arthur Rackham’s illustrations. Aesop’s fables come from ancient Greece; this is not an Indian story.

His version begins in winter, with the ants drying corn that got damp in the rain, and ends with their joke that a grasshopper who sang all summer may as well dance all winter. Joseph Jacobs, in 1894, starts in summer instead, with one ant toiling past a chirping grasshopper, and ends with the moral “It is best to prepare for the days of necessity.”

Read the original: V. S. Vernon Jones, Aesop’s Fables (Project Gutenberg #11339, The Grasshopper and the Ants)

Best for ages 3–5: a short winter fable about hunger and planning; an adult can help discuss the ants’ harsh refusal.

Two questions at the winter store

The story gives the ants a practical advantage: they have food because they stored it. But their last remark is a joke at the expense of someone who says she is starving. Those are two separate matters. Readers can agree that preparation would have helped the grasshopper and still question the ants’ refusal to share. The fable does not establish that everyone who is hungry failed to work, or that music has no value.

Plan a different next summer

Draw a summer day with time for gathering food and time for singing. Then compose a reply in which the ants offer some immediate help and discuss a plan for winter. Explain which problem that reply solves that their original joke does not.

Talk about it

• What was the grasshopper doing while the ants were working?
• Do you think the ants should have shared their food? Why or why not?
• What could the grasshopper do differently next summer?

Related stories

• The Fox and the Grapes — a hungry fox who cannot reach his dinner and pretends not to care
• The Bundle of Sticks — a father shows his quarrelling sons why working together matters
• The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse — two mice discover that a plain, safe dinner beats a frightening feast