This is a story typical of American humor. As William Lyon Phelps
says, "The essentially American qualities of common-sense, energy,
good-humor, and Philistinism fairly shriek from his [Mark Twain's]
pages." Essays on Modern Novelists.
THE NOTORIOUS JUMPING FROG OF CALAVERAS [Footnote: Pronounced Cal-
e-va ras.] COUNTY
[Footnote: From "The Jumping Frog and Other Sketches," by Mark
Twain. Copyright, 1903, by Harper & Bros.]
In compliance with the request of a friend of mine, who wrote me
from the East, I called on good-natured, garrulous old Simon
Wheeler, and inquired after my friend's friend, Leonidas W.
Smiley, as requested to do, and I hereunto append the result. I
have a lurking suspicion that LEONIDAS W. Smiley is a myth; that
my friend never knew such a personage; and that he only
conjectured that if I asked old Wheeler about him, it would remind
him of his infamous JIM Smiley, and he would go to work and bore
me to death with some exasperating reminiscence of him as long and
as tedious as it should be useless to me. If that was the design,
it succeeded.
I found Simon Wheeler dozing comfortably by the bar-room stove of
the dilapidated tavern in the decaying mining camp of Angel's, and
I noticed that he was fat and bald-headed, and had an expression
of winning gentleness and simplicity upon his tranquil
countenance. He roused up, and gave me good-day. I told him a
friend of mine had commissioned me to make some inquiries about a
cherished companion of his boyhood named LEONIDAS W. Smiley--REV.
LEONIDAS W. Smiley, a young minister of the Gospel, who he had
heard was at one time a resident of Angel's Camp. I added that if
Mr. Wheeler could tell me anything about this Rev. Leonidas W.
Smiley, I would feel under many obligations to him.
Simon Wheeler backed me into a corner and blockaded me there with
his chair, and then sat down and reeled off the monotonous
narrative which follows this paragraph. He never smiled, he never
frowned, he never changed his voice from the gentle-flowing key to
which he tuned his initial sentence, he never betrayed the
slightest suspicion of enthusiasm; but all through the
interminable narrative there ran a vein of impressive earnestness
and sincerity, which showed me plainly that, so far from his
imagining that there was anything ridiculous or funny about his
story, he regarded it as a really important matter, and admired
its two heroes as men of transcendent genius in finesse. I let him
go on in his own way, and never interrupted him once.
"Rev. Leonidas W. H'm, Reverend Le--well, there was a feller here
once by the name of JIM Smiley, in the winter of '49--or maybe it
was the spring of '50--I don't recollect exactly, somehow, though
what makes me think it was one or the other is because I remember
the big flume warn't finished when he first come to the camp; but
anyway, he was the curiosest man about always betting on anything
that turned up you ever see, if he could get anybody to bet on the
other side; and if he couldn't he'd change sides. Any way that
suited the other man would suit HIM--any way just so's he got a
bet, HE was satisfied. But still he was lucky, uncommon lucky; he
'most always come out winner. He was always ready and laying for a
chance; there couldn't be no solit'ry thing mentioned but that
feller'd offer to bet on it, and take any side you please, as I
was just telling you. If there was a horse-race, you'd find him
flush or you'd find him busted at the end of it; if there was a
dogfight, he'd bet on it; if there was a cat-fight, he'd bet on
it; if there was a chicken-fight, he'd bet on it; why, if there
was two birds setting on a fence, he would bet you which one would
fly first; or if there was a camp-meeting, he would be there
reg'lar to bet on Parson Walker, which he judged to be the best
exhorter about here, and so he was, too, and a good man. If he
even see a straddle-bug start to go anywheres, he would bet you
how long it would take him to get to--to wherever he was going to,
and if you took him up, he would foller that straddle-bug to
Mexico but what he would find out where he was bound for and how
long he was on the road. Lots of the boys here has seen that
Smiley, and can tell you about him. Why, it never made no
difference to HIM--he'd bet on ANY thing--the dangdest feller.
Parson Walker's wife laid very sick once, for a good while, and it
seemed as if they warn't going to save her; but one morning he
come in, and Smiley up and asked him how she was, and he said she
was consid'able better--thank the Lord for his inf'nite mercy--and
coming on so smart that with the blessing of Prov'dence she'd get
well yet; and Smiley, before he thought, says: 'Well, I'll resk
two-and-a-half she don't anyway.'
"Thish-yer Smiley had a mare--the boys called her the fifteen-
minute nag, but that was only in fun, you know, because, of
course, she was faster than that--and he used to win money on that
horse, for all she was so slow and always had the asthma, or the
distemper, or the consumption, or something of that kind. They
used to give her two or three hundred yards start, and then pass
her under way; but always at the fag end of the race she'd get
excited and desperate like, and come cavorting and straddling up,
and scattering her legs around limber, sometimes in the air, and
sometimes out to one side among the fences, and kicking up m-o-r-e
dust and raising m-o-r-e racket with her coughing and sneezing and
blowing her nose--and ALWAYS fetch up at the stand just about a
neck ahead, as near as you could cipher it down.
"And he had a little small bull-pup, that to look at him you'd
think he warn't worth a cent but to set around and look ornery and
lay for a chance to steal something. But as soon as money was up
on him he was a different dog; his under-jaw'd begin to stick out
like the fo'castle of a steamboat, and his teeth would uncover and
shine like the furnaces. And a dog might tackle him and bully-rag
him, and bite him and throw him over his shoulder two or three
times, and Andrew Jackson--which was the name of the pup--Andrew
Jackson would never let on but what HE was satisfied, and hadn't
expected nothing else--and the bets being doubled and doubled on
the other side all the time, till the money was all up; and then
all of a sudden he would grab that other dog jest by the j'int of
his hind leg and freeze to it--not chaw, you understand, but only
just grip and hang on till they throwed up the sponge, if it was a
year. Smiley always come out winner on that pup, till he harnessed
a dog once that didn't have no hind legs, because they'd been
sawed off in a circular saw, and when the thing had gone along far
enough, and the money was all up, and he come to make a snatch for
his pet holt, he see in a minute how he'd been imposed on, and how
the other dog had him in the door, so to speak, and he 'peared
surprised, and then he looked sorter discouraged-like and didn't
try no more to win the fight, and so he got shucked out bad. He
give Smiley a look, as much as to say his heart was broke, and it
was HIS fault, for putting up a dog that hadn't no hind legs for
him to take holt of, which was his main dependence in a fight, and
then he limped off a piece and laid down and died. It was a good
pup, was that Andrew Jackson, and would have made a name for
hisself if he'd lived, for the stuff was in him and he had genius
--I know it, because he hadn't no opportunities to speak of, and it
don't stand to reason that a dog could make such a fight as he
could under them circumstances if he hadn't no talent. It always
makes me feel sorry when I think of that last fight of his'n, and
the way it turned out.
"Well, thish-yer Smiley had rat-tarriers, and chicken cocks, and
tomcats, and all them kind of things, till you couldn't rest, and
you couldn't fetch nothing for him to bet on but he'd match you.
He ketched a frog one day, and took him home, and said he
cal'lated to educate him; and so he never done nothing for three
months but set in his back yard and learn that frog to jump. And
you bet you he DID learn him, too. He'd give him a little punch
behind, and the next minute you'd see that frog whirling in the
air like a doughnut--see him turn one summerset, or maybe a
couple, if he got a good start, and come down flat-footed and all
right, like a cat. He got him up so in the matter of ketching
flies, and kep' him in practice so constant, that he'd nail a fly
every time as fur as he could see him. Smiley said all a frog
wanted was education, and he could do 'most anything--and I
believe him. Why, I've seen him set Dan'l Webster down here on
this floor--Dan'l Webster was the name of the frog--and sing out,
'Flies, Dan'l, flies!' and quicker'n you could wink he'd spring
straight up and snake a fly off'n the counter there, and flop down
on the floor ag'in as solid as a gob of mud, and fall to
scratching the side of his head with his hind foot as indifferent
as if he hadn't no idea he'd been doin' any more'n any frog might
do. You never see a frog so modest and straightfor'ard as he was,
for all he was so gifted. And when it come to fair and square
jumping on a dead level, he could get over more ground at one
straddle than any animal of his breed you ever see. Jumping on a
dead level was his strong suit, you understand; and when it come
to that, Smiley would ante up money on him as long as he had a
red. Smiley was monstrous proud of his frog, and well he might be,
for fellers that had travelled and been everywheres all said he
laid over any frog that ever THEY see.
"Well, Smiley kep' the beast in a little lattice box, and he used
to fetch him down-town sometimes and lay for a bet. One day a
feller--a stranger in the camp, he was--come acrost him with his
box, and says:
"'What might it be that you've got in the box?'
"And Smiley says, sorter indifferent-like: 'It might be a parrot,
or it might be a canary, maybe, but it ain't--it's only just a
frog.'
"And the feller took it, and looked at it careful, and turned it
round this way and that, and says: 'H'm--so 'tis. Well, what's HE
good for?'
"'Well,' Smiley says, easy and careless, 'he's good enough for ONE
thing, I should judge--he can outjump any frog in Calaveras
county.'
"The feller took the box again, and took another long, particular
look, and give it back to Smiley, and says, very deliberate,
'Well,' he says, 'I don't see no p'ints about that frog that's any
better'n any other frog.'
"'Maybe you don't,' Smiley says. 'Maybe you understand frogs and
maybe you don't understand 'em; maybe you've had experience, and
maybe you ain't only a amature, as it were. Anyways, I've got MY
opinion, and I'll resk forty dollars that he can outjump any frog
in Calaveras county.'
"And the feller studied a minute, and then says, kinder sad like,
'Well, I'm only a stranger here, and I ain't got no frog; but if I
had a frog, I'd bet you.'
"And then Smiley says, 'That's all right--that's all right--if
you'll hold my box a minute, I'll go and get you a frog.' And so
the feller took the box, and put up his forty dollars along with
Smiley's, and set down to wait.
"So he set there a good while thinking and thinking to hisself,
and then he got the frog out and prized his mouth open and took a
teaspoon and filled him full of quail shot--filled him pretty near
up to his chin--and set him on the floor. Smiley he went to the
swamp and slopped around in the mud for a long time, and finally
he ketched a frog, and fetched him in, and give him to this
feller, and says:
"'Now, if you're ready, set him alongside of Dan'l, with his
forepaws just even with Dan'l's, and I'll give the word.' Then he
says, 'One--two--three--GIT!' and him and the feller touched up
the frogs from behind, and the new frog hopped off lively, but
Dan'l give a heave, and hysted up his shoulders--so--like a
Frenchman, but it warn't no use--he couldn't budge; he was planted
as solid as a church, and he couldn't no more stir than if he was
anchored out. Smiley was a good deal surprised, and he was
disgusted too, but he didn't have no idea what the matter was, of
course.
"The feller took the money and started away; and when he was going
out at the door, he sorter jerked his thumb over his shoulder--so
--at Dan'l, and says again, very deliberate, 'Well,' he says, '_I_
don't see no p'ints about that frog that's any better'n any other
frog.'
"Smiley he stood scratching his head and looking down at Dan'l a
long time, and at last he says, 'I do wonder what in the nation
that frog throw'd off for--I wonder if there ain't something the
matter with him--he 'pears to look mighty baggy, somehow,' And he
ketched Dan'l by the nap of the neck, and hefted him, and says,
'Why, blame my cats if he don't weigh five pound!' and turned him
upside down and he belched out a double handful of shot. And then
he see how it was, and he was the maddest man--he set the frog
down and took out after that feller, but he never ketched him.
And--"
[Here Simon Wheeler heard his name called from the front yard, and
got up to see what was wanted.] And turning to me as he moved
away, he said: "Just set where you are, stranger, and rest easy--I
ain't going to be gone a second."
But, by your leave, I did not think that a continuation of the
history of the enterprising vagabond JIM Smiley would be likely to
afford me much information concerning the Rev. LEONIDAS W. Smiley,
and so I started away.
At the door I met the sociable Wheeler returning, and he button-
holed me and re-commenced:
"Well, thish-yer Smiley had a yeller one-eyed cow that didn't have
no tail, only just a short stump like a bannanner, and--"
However, lacking both time and inclination, I did not wait to hear
about the afflicted cow, but took my leave.