The hammer rang once. A spark jumped off the anvil and did not go out. It waited. They followed.

It rolled into the library and up onto the old book of fables, the same one as the crow. It stopped on the white margin, and the margin opened like a path.

The crow's page still had its old mend, the strip of thin paper with the tiny hammer in the corner.

Beto had three bookmarks in his pocket: a hare, a hedgehog and a coconut. "One more," he said.

Yonder, the alert young hare, was waiting with his ears up.

"Guess first, then read on," said Yonder. The title said: THE ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER.

"A race," said Beto. "An ant and a grasshopper race, and the small one wins, like the tortoise."

"I bet something surprises you," said Yonder.

They walked along the words.

All summer long, a grasshopper sat in the sun and sang. Nearby, an ant worked from morning to night, carrying grains of wheat to its nest. "Why work so hard?" asked the grasshopper. "Come and sing." "I am storing food for the winter," said the ant. "You should too." But the grasshopper laughed and stayed idle.

"Idle?" asked Beto.

Pith, the round coconut, rolled up. "Look at the words around it," said Pith. "Sat in the sun. Sang. Laughed. Didn't carry anything."

"Doing nothing," said Beto. "Not working."

"And storing?" asked Pith.

"Keeping it for later," said Inkling. "Like a cupboard."

"Swap in a word you know," said Pith. "The ant was filling a cupboard."

"It's not a race at all," said Beto. Yonder thumped his foot happily.

Winter came. Snow covered the fields. The grasshopper had nothing to eat. It went to the ant's nest and begged for a little grain. "What did you do all summer?" asked the ant. "I sang," said the grasshopper. "Then you can dance all winter," said the ant, and shut the door.

Nettle, the hedgehog with question-shaped quills, popped up out of the gutter.

"Wait, why that?" said Nettle. "Poke it with a question. Was the ant kind?"

"The ant was right," said Beto. "The grasshopper should have worked."

"Right and kind aren't the same word," said Inkling. "The ant had lots. It could have shared a bit."

"Some people who told this story later thought that too," said Nettle. "A question doesn't have to be answered today. It just has to be asked."

At the end of the margin stood Sheaf, the harvester, with an armful of wheat.

"Sum it up," said Sheaf.

"OK," said Beto. "So there's a grasshopper, and it's summer, and it sits in the sun, and it sings, and there's an ant, and the ant carries wheat, one grain, then another grain, and the grasshopper says why work so hard, and the ant says—"

"One armful, not every stalk," said Sheaf gently. "If you keep every stalk, you can't carry any of it. What did each one want? What did each one do? What happened?"

Beto stopped. He thought.

"An ant stored food all summer while a grasshopper sang," he said, "so in winter the ant had food and the grasshopper didn't, and the ant wouldn't share."

"Tie it up neat," said Sheaf.

"And one question," said Beto. "Was the ant kind?"

Sheaf tied the wheat with one stalk. A paper bookmark slid out of the binding. It had a sheaf of wheat on it.

Beto fanned out all four. A hare, a hedgehog, a coconut, a sheaf. Guess, ask, work it out, sum it up.

Back on the Green

The spark dimmed to a warm dot and settled back on the anvil. The Green was just the Green again.

At dinner, Beto's mum asked about his day. He didn't tell her every minute. He told her one sentence, and one question.