The Cricket and the Ant

Once upon a time, at the edge of a meadow, there lived a cricket. All summer, while the sun shone high above, he sat among the leaves, took out his fiddle and sang from morning till night. The flowers kept him company and the butterflies danced.

In the same meadow lived an ant. The ant got up early every morning, loaded a grain of wheat onto her back, carried it to her nest, then went back for another. Every time the cricket saw her he laughed: "Sister Ant, come and rest a while! Look how lovely the weather is, let's sing together." The ant would shake her head: "Now is the time to work. What will we eat when winter comes?"

The days passed, the leaves turned yellow, the wind grew cold. Then the snow began to fall. The meadow turned white, the flowers went to sleep, and there was not a single grain of wheat left, not a single drop of honey.

Shivering, the cricket knocked on the ant's door. "Sister Ant," he said, "I am so hungry. Could you give me a few grains of wheat? I will pay you back when summer comes, I promise."

The ant opened the door a crack. "What did you do all summer?" she asked. The cricket hung his head: "I sang... I sang day and night."

The ant thought for a moment. In the old story the ant shuts the door, but our ant did not do that. "Come in," she said, "stay with me this winter. But in spring we will work together, and I will teach you how to gather wheat. And you can teach me how to sing, all right?"

The cricket happily agreed. That winter, in the ant's warm nest, sipping wheat soup, he sang the most beautiful winter songs. And when spring came, the two of them worked together and sang together.

From that day on, everyone in the meadow knew: there is a time for work and a time for song. Whoever forgets neither has a good winter and a good summer too.