estimated the length of its body, from the beak to the point of the
tail, as twenty feet, the circumference as "the size of a hogshead." Its
tentacular arms, he determined, must be at least thirty-five feet long;
and when the boat came within that distance he shuddered.
"Is you sure he's dead?" Bobby whispered, weakly.
"I don't know!" Billy answered, in a gasp. "I thinks so."
Bobby dropped the oars and stepped to the bow of the punt. The boat lost
way and came to a stop within twenty feet of the squid. Still there was
no sign of life.
The boys stared at the great, still body, lying quiet in the gathering
dusk and haze. Neither seemed to feel the slight trembling of the boat
that might have warned them. Not a word was spoken until Billy, in a
whisper, directed Bobby to pull the boat a few feet nearer.
"But we're movin' already," he added, in a puzzled way.
The boat was very slowly approaching the squid. The motion was hardly
perceptible, but it was real.
"'Tis queer!" said Bobby.
He turned to take up the oars. What he saw lying over the port gunwale
of the boat made him gasp, grip Billy's wrist and utter a scream of
terror!
"We're cotched!"
The squid had fastened one of its tentacles to the punt. The other was
poised above the stern, ready to fall and fix its suckers. The onward
movement of the punt was explained.
Billy knew the danger, but he was not so terrified as to be incapable of
action. He was about to spring to the stern to strike off the tentacle
that already lay over the gunwale; but as he looked down to choose his
step he saw that one of the eight powerful arms was slowly creeping over
the starboard bow.
He struck at that arm with all his might, missed, wrenched the ax from
the gunwale, and struck true. The mutilated arm was withdrawn. Billy
leaped to the stern, vaguely conscious in passing that another arm was
creeping from the water. He severed the first tentacle with one blow.
When he turned to strike the second it had disappeared; so, too, had the
second arm. The boat seemed to be free, but it was still within grasp.
In the meantime the squid had awakened to furious activity. It was
lashing the water with arms and tail, angrily snapping its great beak
and ejecting streams of black water from its siphon-tube. The water was
violently agitated and covered with a black froth.
In this the creature manifested fear and distress. Had it not been
aground it would have backed swiftly into the deep water of the basin.
But, as if finding itself at bay, it lifted its uninjured tentacle high
above the boat. Billy made ready to strike.
By this time Bobby had mastered his terror. While Billy stood with
uplifted ax, his eyes fixed on the waving tentacle overhead, Bobby
heaved mightily on the oars. The boat slowly drew away from that highly
dangerous neighborhood. In a moment it was beyond reach of the arms, but
still, apparently, within reach of the tentacle. The tentacle was
withdrawn a short distance; then like a flash it shot towards the boat,
writhing as it came.
Billy struck blindly--and struck nothing. The tentacle had fallen short.
The boat was out of danger!
* * * * *
But still Billy Topsail was determined to have the body of the squid.
Notwithstanding Bobby's pleading and protestation, he would not abandon
his purpose. He was only the more grimly bent on achieving it. Bobby
would not hear of again approaching nearer than the boat then floated,
nor did Billy think it advisable. But it occurred to Bobby that they
might land, and approach the squid from behind. If they could draw near
enough, he said, they could cast the grapnel on the squid's back, and
moor it to a tree ashore.
"Sure," he said, excitedly, "you can pick up a squid from behind, and it
can't touch you with its arms! It won't be able to see us, and it won't
be able to reach us."
So they landed. Billy carried the grapnel, which was attached to twelve
fathoms of line. It had six prongs, and each prong was barbed.
A low cliff at the edge of the tickle favored the plan. The squid lay
below, and some twenty feet out from the rock. It was merely a question
of whether or not Billy was strong enough to throw the grapnel so far.
They tied the end of the line to a stout shrub. Billy cast the grapnel,
and it was a strong, true cast. The iron fell fair on the squid's back.
It was a capture.
"That means a new punt for me," said Billy, quietly. "The tide'll not
carry _that_ devil-fish away."
"And now," Bobby pleaded, "leave us make haste home, for 'tis growin'
wonderful dark--and--and there might be another somewhere."
So that is how one of the largest specimens of _Architeuthis
princeps_--enumerated in Prof. John Adam Wright's latest monograph on
the cephalopods of North America as the "Chain Tickle specimen"--was
captured. And that is how Billy Topsail fairly won a new punt; for when
Doctor Marvey, the curator of the Public Museum at St. John's--who is
deeply interested in the study of the giant squids--came to Ruddy Cove
to make photographs and take measurements, in response to a message from
Billy's father, he rewarded the lad.
FOOTNOTES:
[G] Reprinted by special permission from "The Adventures of Billy
Topsail." Copyright, 1906, by Fleming H. Revell Company.
[1] "The early literature of natural history has, from very remote
times, contained allusions to huge species of cephalopods, often
accompanied by more or less fabulous and usually exaggerated
descriptions of the creatures. . . . The description of the 'poulpe,' or
devil-fish, by Victor Hugo, in 'Toilers of the Sea,' with which so many
readers are familiar, is quite as fabulous and unreal as any of the
earlier accounts, and even more bizarre. . . . Special attention has
only recently been called to the frequent occurrence of these 'big
squids,' as our fishermen call them, in the waters of Newfoundland and
the adjacent coasts. . . . I have been informed by many other fishermen
that the 'big squids' are occasionally taken on the Grand Banks and used
for bait. Nearly all the specimens hitherto taken appear to have been
more or less disabled when first observed, otherwise they probably would
not appear at the surface in the daytime. From the fact that they have
mostly come ashore in the night, I infer that they inhabit chiefly the
very deep and cold fiords of Newfoundland, and come to the surface only
in the night."--From the "Report on the Cephalopods of the Northeastern
Coast of America," by A. E. Verrill. Extracted from a report of the
Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries, issued by the Government Printing
Office at Washington. In this report twenty-five specimens of the large
species taken in Newfoundland are described in detail.
[2] Stories of this kind, of which there are many, are doubted by the
authorities, who have found it impossible to authenticate a single
instance of unprovoked attack.
[Illustration]
VIII.--The Jumping Frog[H]
_By Mark Twain_
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 came 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 what 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 ary 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
dog-fight, 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
sitting 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 came 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 alone 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 traveled 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 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'ls, 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 bananner, and----"
However, lacking both time and inclination, I did not wait to hear about
the afflicted cow, but took my leave.
FOOTNOTE:
[H] Published by express permission of the Mark Twain Company as well as
the Trustees of the Estate of Samuel L. Clemens and Harper and Brothers,
Publishers.
[Illustration]
IX.--Bingism[I]
_By Booth Tarkington_
PENROD SCHOFIELD, having been "kept in" for that unjust period of twenty
minutes after school, emerged to a deserted street. That is, the street
was deserted so far as Penrod was concerned. Here and there people were
to be seen upon the sidewalks, but they were adults, and they and the
shade trees had about the same quality of significance in Penrod's
consciousness. Usually he saw grown people in the mass, which is to say,
they were virtually invisible to him, though exceptions must be taken in
favor of policemen, firemen, street-car conductors, motormen, and all
other men in any sort of uniform or regalia. But this afternoon none of
these met the roving eye, and Penrod set out upon his homeward way
wholly dependent upon his own resources.
To one of Penrod's inner texture, a mere unadorned walk from one point
to another was intolerable, and he had not gone a block without
achieving some slight remedy for the tameness of life. An electric-light
pole at the corner, invested with powers of observation, might have been
surprised to find itself suddenly enacting a role of dubious honor in
improvised melodrama. Penrod, approaching, gave the pole a look of sharp
suspicion, then one of conviction; slapped it lightly and contemptuously
with his open hand; passed on a few paces, but turned abruptly, and,
pointing his right forefinger, uttered the symbolic word, "Bing!"
The plot was somewhat indefinite; yet nothing is more certain than that
the electric-light pole had first attempted something against him, then
growing bitter when slapped, and stealing after him to take him
treacherously in the back, had got itself shot through and through by
one too old in such warfare to be caught off his guard.
Leaving the body to lie where it was, he placed the smoking pistol in a
holster at his saddlebow--he had decided that he was mounted--and
proceeded up the street. At intervals he indulged himself in other
encounters, reining in at first suspicion of ambush with a muttered,
"Whoa, Charlie!" or "Whoa, Mike!" or even "Whoa, Washington!" for
preoccupation with the enemy outweighed attention to the details of
theatrical consistency, though the steed's varying names were at least
harmoniously masculine, since a boy, in these creative moments, never
rides a mare. And having brought Charlie or Mike or Washington to a
standstill, Penrod would draw the sure weapon from its holster
and--"Bing! Bing! Bing!"--let them have it.
It is not to be understood that this was a noisy performance, or even an
obvious one. It attracted no attention from any pedestrian, and it was
to be perceived only that a boy was proceeding up the street at a
somewhat irregular gait. Three or four years earlier, when Penrod was
seven or eight, he would have shouted "Bing!" at the top of his voice;
he would have galloped openly; all the world might have seen that he
bestrode a charger. But a change had come upon him with advancing years.
Although the grown people in sight were indeed to him as walking trees,
his dramas were accomplished principally by suggestion and symbol. His
"Whoas" and "Bings" were delivered in a husky whisper, and his
equestrianism was established by action mostly of the mind, the
accompanying artistry of the feet being unintelligible to the passerby.