JIM SMILEY’S CELEBRATED JUMPING FROG OF CALAVERAS COUNTY.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume II, Issue 55, 18 January 1868, Page 4

JIM SMILEY’S CELEBRATED JUMPING FROG OF CALAVERAS COUNTY.

Br Mark Twain.

As the best specimen of Mark Twain’s powers is a ludicrous story of one Jim Smiley of Calaveras county, who has a passion for betting, and for training all kinds of odd creatures to serve his gambling purposes : “He fetched a frog one day, and took him home, and said he cal’klated to cdercate him ; and so he never done nothing for three months but sat in his back yard and learn that frog to jump. And bet you he did leam him, too. He’d give him a little punch behind, and the next minute yon’d see that frog whirling in the air like a doughnut—see him turn one summerset, or may>be a couple, if he got a good start, and come down flatfooted and all right, like a cat. He got him up so in the matter of catching flies, and kept him in practice so constant, that he’d nail a fly every timejas far as he could see him. P niley said all a frog wanted was education,.. 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 Plies!’ 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 again as solid as a gob of mud, and fell 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 came to a fair, and square jump on a dead level, he would get over -more ground at one straddle than any animal (ofhis 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, 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 kept 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 across him with his box, and says:— “ ‘ What might it be that you’ve got in the box?’

“And Smiley says, sorter indifferent like, ‘lt might be a parrot, or it might be a canary maybe, but it an’t—it 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 it is. Well, what’s he good for ? ’

.‘“Well,” Smiley says, easy knd careless, ‘ he’s good enough for one tning, I should judge—he can outjump any frog in Calaveras country.’

“ The feller took the box again, and took another long particular look, and give it back to Smiley, and says very deliberate, ‘Well 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 an’t only a araature, as it were Anyways, I’ve got my opinion, and I’ll risk forty dollars that he can outjump any frog in Calaveras country,’ “And the feller studied a minute and then says kinder sad like, ‘Well, I’m only a stranger here, and I an’t got no frog; hut 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 by 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 sat 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 ketchod 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, and I’ll give the word 1 ’ Then he says, ‘One—two three jump! ’ and him and the feller touched up the frogs from behind, and the new frogjhopped off, but Dan’l gave a heave and hystled up his shoulders—so—like a Frenchman; but it wan’t no use—he couldn’t budge; he was planted as solid as an anvil, 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—this way—at Dan’l, and says again, very deliberate, ‘Well, I dont see no p’ints about that frog that’s any hetter’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—l wonder if there an’t something the matter with him—he ’appears to look mighty baggy, somehow.’ And he ketched Dan’l by the nap of the neck, and lifted him up and says, ‘ Why blame my cats, if he don’t weigh five pound! and turned him upsidedown, 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 trog down and took out after that feller, but he never ketched him.