In the middle of a deep forest there is a small mound of needles, small twigs and dirt. And if you look closely, it looks like the whole pile is moving. It’s an anthill. All around and on that little hill, you’ll see tiny, hard-working ants, always marching somewhere. Ants are like one big family. They help each other, they work together and they do everything together. But it wasn’t always like that in this anthill.
A few years ago, an ant hatched in the anthill that was different from the others. Ever since he was a baby, he didn’t want to do anything with the others. He wanted to do everything his own way. As he got bigger, he built his own private anthill next to the big one that belonged to the other ants. Because he wanted to do everything by himself, everyone started calling him Loney.
His friends from the anthill would often say to him, “Loney, come to our anthill, we miss you. It’s nice to work together and not be alone.” But Loney always replied, “I’m fine here. I have my own little anthill, and I can do it best by myself. I don’t need you.” The other ants, even the queen, were sad about it. They did everything they could to keep Loney with them. But they couldn’t make him..
The ant queen was wise and suspected that there would come a time when Loney would be grateful for his friends and for help. Not a few days passed… A fire broke out in the forest. Well, it wasn’t much of a fire. For humans it was a small fire from a tiny spark that didn’t spread any further, but for the ants it was a huge fire, because they’re tiny.
The fire started burning around the anthill. Flames were shooting out in all directions and the ants were trying to save themselves as quickly as possible. They carried water, tried to put out the fire as best they could. When they had saved what they could and the fire was starting to diminish, they heard a cry for help. It was Loney, who was trapped in his little lonely anthill, right next to their big one. The ants weren’t lazy and pulled their friend out and extinguished his still smoldering half-decayed little anthill.
When they had nursed each other back to health and were feeling better, the queen decided, “Now we must get to work. We have to fix the anthill. Thanks to everyone for the rescue, but now we must put our home in order.” They all got to work, but only Loney stood there looking at the Queen and replied, “I don’t want to. I want to make my own anthill, because I know best.”
All the ants paused and waited to see what the queen would say. She looked at him wisely and said, “Loney, each of us knows something best. But it is when we put our strengths together and are not selfish that we will do our best work. Besides, don’t forget that if you didn’t have friends who treated you so nicely and risked their lives to save you, things would have turned out badly. You want to build an anthill, you say you know best, but you couldn’t save yourself.”
Loney blushed. He figured the queen was right. He put his head down, apologized to everyone, and thanked them for their help. Since then, he’s no longer a proud and selfish ant. He uses his skills to improve the big anthill.
