By Mark Twain
(Samuel Langhorne Clemens)
1835-1910
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 decayed 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 that 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 of 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 curiousest
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 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 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 outwhere he was bound for how long
e 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 considerable 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 though,
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'
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 on
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 din'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 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 the
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 calc'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 straight-for'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 that any animal of his breed you ever
see. Jumping on a dead level was his strong suit, you understand;
and when it came to that, Smiley would ante up money on him
as long as he had a red. Smiley was monstrous proud of his
frog, as well as 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 --
came 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
deliverate, 'Well,' he says, 'I don't see no p'ints about
that frog that's 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, kider
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 himself, 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 fore paws 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 solid as a church,
and he couldn't no more stir than if he was anchored out.
Smiley was a good deal surprized, 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 throwed off for -- I wonder what 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 couble 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 the 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 aint 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
buttonholed me and recommenced:
"Well, thish-yer Smiley had a yaller 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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County"
made Mark Twain famous. It was first published in 1865 when
Twain was a struggling journalist in California, who made
regular trips between San Francisco and a small mountain cabin
near the town of Angels Camp where he wrote the story.
It was widely reprinted in newspapers across the country
and in 1866 became the centerpiece for his first book, "The
Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, and Other Sketches."
In May of 1928 the Angels Boosters Club developed and organized
a celebration on Main Street of Angels Camp based on Twain's
story. An estimated 15,000 people turned out for the festivities,
the highlight of which featured the a Frog Jumping Competition.
The world-famous Calaveras County Fair & Jumping Frog
Jubilee is held the third weekend of each year at the Calaveras
County Fairgrounds, better known as Frogtown.
Reprinted from http://www.frogtown.org/The%20story.htm
