Many of us are familiar with the fable of The Ant and the Grasshopper: the Grasshopper plays on his fiddle all summer, while the ants diligently, and cheerlessly, work to gather food for the winter. When the winter finally comes, the grasshopper begs for food from the ants, but is turned away as a foolish freeloader, and starves...

Well, many, many years ago, my mother brought home a greeting card from an independant bookstore that had an illustration of the fable (I think from the 1890's, or thereabouts) on the front, and a different version of the story on the back.

In this version, the ants ask the grasshopper to play for them, to make their work easier (an insectoid shantymaster?), but when the summer and the work are over, refuse to pay the grasshopper for playing, because he didn't make any tangible contribution to their stockpile. The grasshopper still dies, but it's the ants who are portrayed as foolish and cruel.

Unfortunately, the card is long gone, and with it, the source information. Does anyone here have any clues as to where that alternative version may have come from?

In any case, I thought Mudcatters would apreciate it. :-)