The Ant and the Sugar

4.5

Aunt Lucy had a house and a garden. She lived in the house, and a hundred ants lived in the garden.

One day one of the ants, whose name was Thomas, said, “I am going to look for something to eat.”

He crawled under the door and across the kitchen floor and up the cupboard door till he came to the key-hole, and he crawled through the key-hole.

Now he was in the kitchen cupboard. He looked around and he saw a great big bowl of sugar.

“Oh!” he said, “just what I like best,” and he sat down and began to eat the sugar. It was very sweet. He ate and ate and grew fatter and fatter, till, at last, he couldn’t eat any more sugar.

Then he decided to go home, and began to crawl out through the key-hole, but he was so fat that he couldn’t crawl out through it.

Poor Thomas sat down and cried. He knew that his mother was waiting for him. Again he tried to crawl out through the key-hole, but couldn’t; he was too fat.

So he waited, and began to do exercises.

“They will make me thinner,” he thought.

He did exercises for a long time until, at last, he was quite thin again.

He was going to crawl through the key-hole and go home when he felt that he was hungry. He thought, “I’ll eat a little sugar before I go,” and he ate some sugar.

The sugar was so nice that he ate a lot. Then he began to crawl through the key-hole, but he couldn’t; he was too fat again. So he waited, and did his exercises again and again, until he grew thin.

And again he felt very hungry, but this time he knew better than to eat more sugar. He crawled through the key-hole and down the cupboard, across the kitchen floor, under the door and out into the garden.

When he reached home, he told his mother all about the sugar. She called all the other ants together and said, “Let us go and see Aunt Lucy.”

So they crawled across the garden and under the door, across the kitchen floor, and then into Aunt Lucy’s bedroom.

She was glad to see them. They told her all about Thomas, and how he could get into the cupboard before eating sugar, but couldn’t get out after eating it.

“I shall always leave a little saucer of sugar for you on the kitchen floor, in the corner,” said Aunt Lucy.

And all the ants said, “Thank you very much.”

They kissed Aunt Lucy a tickly kiss, said good-bye and went home.