University of Virginia Library

THE CELEBRATED JUMPING FROG
OF
CALAVERAS COUNTY.

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

nearly to death with some infernal reminiscence
of him as long and tedious as it should be useless
to me. If that was the design, it certainly
succeeded.

I found Simon Wheeler dozing comfortably
by the bar-room stove of the old, dilapidated
tavern in the ancient 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 any thing
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
me 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 the 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 any thing 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.
To me, the spectacle of a man drifting serenely
along through such a queer yarn without ever
smiling, was exquisitely absurd. As I said before,
I asked him to tell me what he knew of
Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, and he replied as
follows. I let him go on in his own way, and
never interrupted him once:

There was a feller here once by the name of
Jim Smiley, in the winter of '49—or may be 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 wasn't finished when he first came to the
camp; but any way, he was the curiosest man
about always betting on any thing that turned
up you ever see, if he could get any body 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 solitry 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 judgeed
to be the best exhorter about here, and so
he was, too, and a good man. If he even seen
a straddle-bug start to go anywheres, he would
bet you how long it would take him to get
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 would 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 asked how she
was, and he said she was considerable better—
thank the Lord for his inf'nit 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 risk two-and-a-half
that she don't, any way.”

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 amongst 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 wan'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 savage 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 jest 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 by 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 saw 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 had 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 tom-cats, 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'klated to
edercate 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 may be 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 catching flies, and
kept him in practice so constant, that he'd nail
a fly every time as far as he could see him.
Smiley said all a frog wanted was education,
and he could do most any thing—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
again 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 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—come across
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,
may be, but it an'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 ary 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, I
don't see no p'ints about that frog that's any
better'n any other frog.”

“May be you don't,” Smiley says. “May be
you understand frogs, and may be you don't
understand 'em; may be you've had experience,
and may be you an't only a amature, as it
were. Anyways, I've got my opinion, and I'll
risk 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 an'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 fore-paws just even with Dan'l,
and I'll give the word.” Then he says, “One
—two—three—jump!” and him and the feller
touched up the frogs from behind, and the new
frog hopped off, but Dan'l give a heave, and
hysted 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 shoulders—this
way—at Dan'l, and says again, very deliberate,
“Well, 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 an'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
lifted him up 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 an'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 jest a
short stump like a bannanner, and—”

“Oh! hang Smiley and his afflicted cow!”
I muttered, good-naturedly, and bidding the
old gentleman good-day, I departed.