On a sunny day, as the brown earth lay smiling in the warm sunlight, two little ants peeped out from their home in the anthill. Soon the sun would set, and a cold wind would blow until the ground was hard and white with snow. This was the last warm day, so Annie and Andy knew they must make the most of it.
“I’m so hungry,” said Annie. “I think I shall have to starve before winter comes.”
“There’s no time to waste,” replied Andy, who was a very busy little ant. “Our family must have food to last through the long winter. Everyone is working, and we must not sit down and cry.”
How the two ants did run and work! They carried crumbs quite three times as heavy as themselves. They worked just as hard all day, and in the evening when they went home each ant had enough to fill all the little rooms in the house. The next day they all came out crying—
“May I take this home?” “May I take that?”
It was quite the teeniest little thing you ever saw; but Annie and Andy managed to get it home, and all the other ants were just as kind. So with a warm home and plenty of food, no ant had anything to wish for.
Then a sad thing happened. Andy one day said to Annie, “A very heavy rain is coming to-day. Plenty of food we have ready, but we have no roof over our heads.” A few moments later the first big drops fell. What could be done? Every hole in the ground was full of water. The ants began to cry.
Just then Annie said, “If you will help me, dear brother, I think I can do something. Come with me.” So off they set, and when they reached the top of the hill there was all the green food, but the trees seemed to grow bigger every minute, and the grass was so wet the ants could hardly walk. But they did walk, and they did not mind wet feet, for they soon reached a big brown mushroom that had grown up to keep off the rain.
To this mushroom they ran, and, turning it over, they sang out “Quick, all hands here,” and they all came, nearly drowning but so glad to see a friend.
Soon all were under the mushroom. What good times they had, and what a nice warm roof it made! They soon dried their clothes by the warmth from all their bodies and the rain fell harder and harder outside, but in the mushroom all was so cheerful and bright.
And this was the way in which two little rare ants saved all their family from starving and drowning. If it had not been for Annie and Andy, not one ant would have been alive to tell the tale.