The Ant, the Grasshopper and the Farmer's Boot

The old fable of the grasshopper and the ant occupies my thoughts a good deal lately. You know the story, the first chilly blasts of impending winter have shriveled the plants and times are suddenly hard. Mr. Ant is surveying the bleak landscape and sees Mr. Grasshopper hopping along, looking stressed.

There follows an Improving Lecture from Mr. Ant to Mr. Grasshopper, comparing their relative situations, much to Mr. Ant's advantage, since he is perched on a deeply dug network of warm galleries chock full of foodstuffs. While Mr. Grasshopper spent all summer doing his thing, hopping giddily from one diversion to another, Mr. Ant toiled like, well like an ant, and prepared for the coming winter. Industry vs. Sloth. The opposite poles of approaches to Life.

I am constitutionally a Grasshopper. The long grind of regular effort and planning ahead do not come naturally to me, when I can manage them at all. Necessity has led me to long stints of Ant-like effort; having children is a great spur even to Grasshoppers. Something in me rebels at the tone of the Improving Lecture, however. Mr. Ant is so smug, sitting on his anthill, I want to smack him.

So, herewith an addendum to the fable of Ant and Grasshopper.

Right about the time that the Ant is really getting into his lecture, the farmer whose field has been home to both Ant and Grasshopper strides into the scene, and his boot crushes the life from both insects. The farmer doesn't even notice, and continues his tour of his fallow field. Below the flattened bodies of Mr. Ant and Mr. Grasshopper, the bounteous galleries of the anthill begin their slow decay into soil, which will be turned by the plow again next Spring. New Ants and new Grasshoppers will begin their season in the sun. But the Farmer's Boot comes for them all, and it is folly to believe that thrift and industry are any guarantee of survival.