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Retelling an old fable and putting your own spin on it was one of the ancient Rhetorical Exercises. In this Exercise I attempt to retell a famous fable.

The Ants and the Grasshopper
by Aesop
Original version: THE ANTS were spending a fine winter’s day drying grain collected in the summertime. A grasshopper, perishing with famine, passed by and earnestly begged for a little food. The ants inquired of him, “Why did you not treasure up food during the summer?” He replied, “I had not leisure enough. I passed the days in singing.” They then said in derision: “If you were foolish enough to sing all the summer, you must dance supperless to bed in the winter.”
The hard working and possessive ants were spending one cold winter day drying their grains they have collected. The ants worked so hard that summer they collected enough grains for two summers. Weary and famished a grasshopper stopped and asked if he could have some grains. Overcome with sympathy for the old helpless grasshopper the ants reluctantly gave her some grains but not without the following advise “next time if you wish to eat our grains you will have to help collect them or next winter you will go to bed hungry"