Living next door to the ant was a grasshopper. The grasshopper was
lazy. All he wanted to do from sunup to sundown was to play his fiddle in
the sunshine and sing and dance. He would watch the ants going to and fro
from their ant hill and he would sing:
[Tune for all songs: London Bridge is Falling Down]
"Hurry,
hurry, work all day
Never any time for play...
Sit and listen to my
song.
The day is warm and life is long."
The ants usually just ignored the grasshopper when he would sing his song. They were too busy collecting food to worry about what a silly grasshopper might have to say, but the ant cared what might happen to his friend the grasshopper, so he made up a song of his own:
"Lazy, silly, play all day...
Play your fiddle while you
may.
Winter comes with ice and snow.
How you'll live, I just don't
know."
The grasshopper had never really thought about winter. Perhaps the ant was right; maybe he should collect some food for the winter. The grasshopper started looking for food, but then he got distracted by the clouds in the sky and the song of a bird and he decided to make up a new song instead:
"Hurry, scurry, work all day.
You should take some time to
play.
Clouds float by and birdies sing
I'll work later... it's still
Spring."
The ant just shook his head in disbelief and kept on working. From time to time the ant would remind the grasshopper that he needed to save food for the Winter, but the grasshopper always had an excuse to do it later.
When the sun was shining bright in the Mid-summer sky, the grasshopper
sang:
"Hurry, scurry, work all day.
You should take some time to
play.
Grass grows green and sun does shine
I'll do work another
time..."
When the chiily Autumn breezes began to pull the leaves from the trees, the ants weren't the only ones hurrying to bring food into their houses. The squirrels and chipmunks also tried to convince the grasshopper to save for the coming Winter, but the grasshopper just laughed and sang:
"Autumn leaves are falling down.
Nuts and apples on the
ground.
Though there's frost up in the air,
I won't work...I just
don't care."
As the days grew colder, the ant tried again and again to get his friend to find a warm house and to save some of the nuts and seeds that were lying on the ground. The grasshopper would just laugh at the ant and went right on playing his fiddle and singing and dancing.
Then, one morning when the ant woke up, he couldn't hear his friend singing. The ant looked for the grasshopper and found him frozen to death with his fiddle in his hands. The ant shook his head sadly and sang:
"Lazy, silly, always played...
Never worked a single
day.
Never planned and now you're gone.
I will really miss your
song."
Then the ant crawled back into his nice warm anthill with all his brothers and sisters and they all had a nice big breakfast.
