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 right0-that’s all right if you’ll hold
my box a minute, I’ll go and get you a frog.’ Any 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 touches 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 Teller 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 pints 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.
Now let the learned look upon this picture and say if iconoclasm can
further go:
[From the Revue des Deux Mondes, of July 15th, 1872.]
…………………..
THE JUMPING FROG
“–Il y avait, une fois ici un individu connu sous le nom de Jim Smiley:
c’etait dans l’hiver de 49, peut-etre bien au printemps de 50, je ne me
reappelle pas exactement. Ce qui me fait croire que c’etait l’un ou
l’autre, c’est que je me souviens que le grand bief n’etait pas acheve
lorsqu’il arriva au camp pour la premiere fois, mais de toutes facons il
etait l’homme le plus friand de paris qui se put voir, pariant sur tout
ce qui se presentaat, quand il pouvait trouver un adversaire, et, quand
n’en trouvait pas il passait du cote oppose. Tout ce qui convenaiat
l’autre lui convenait; pourvu qu’il eut un pari, Smiley etait satisfait.