THE NOTORIOUS JUMPING FROG OF CALAVERAS COUNTY
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
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 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 curiousest man about always being 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 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 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 arly 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 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 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, til 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 callated 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 sadlike, 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 youll 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 Frenehman, 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 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.
- END -