Week 14 Storytelling: The Grasshopper and the Ant

 There once was a grasshopper. He spent all of his summer singing songs for the community. He sang old songs and new songs. He took all requests and would play anything. He was the best in the whole community at singing songs.  While he was singing his songs, the rest of the village was busy at work collecting food for the winter. The grasshopper didn’t care, and thought that he still had plenty of time to collect food for the winter so he just kept singing. Little did he know, winter was just around the corner.

A picture of an ant and a grasshopper. Web source: Wikipedia

The next week, winter had struck in full force. The grasshopper was freezing cold, as he had not made a place for shelter. He was also very hungry because he never had enough time to collect food. He started to ponder how he was going to get through the winter with no food or shelter. He decided to go ask his good friend, ant, if he had any food he could spare.

The ant laughed at his request. The ant said that he shouldn’t have been singing, but instead should have just collected food like everyone else. The ant then told him that he should dance for food, since he had sang all summer. At first, grasshopper walked away very melancholy. He thought that this would be his last winter ever, for he thought he could not make it through this harsh winter. Then he thought, maybe ant had a great idea.

Instead of dancing for the winter and begging for food, he decided to open a dance club. This is a place where all of the critters of the village could become warm and have fun during the winter. He knew that he could charge people food to come into the dance club. He began work immediately on the building of his dance club, and before he knew it, he was done.

It was opening day at the dance club, and everyone came to dance and have fun. In just one night, grasshopper had enough food to last him the whole winter so he started letting people in for free. Ant came to the dance club looking for a good time, but grasshopper would not let him in. He told that ant that since he didn’t give him food, he could never come in his club. The ant went back to his house and was alone all winter.

Author’s Note

The original story can be found here: The Grasshopper and the Ant. In the original, the exact same thing happened. The grasshopper had been singing all summer so he didn’t have time to collect food for the winter. He went to the ant to ask for some food and the ant told him he should dance to collect food. This is where the original story ended though. So I decided to add a little twist and have the grasshopper open up a dance club where he could collect food. 

Here is the original:   Fables in Rhyme for Little Folks by W. T. Larned and illustrated by John Rae (1918).