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 solittry 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 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's 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 inftnit mercy
and coming on so smart that, with the blessing of Providence, 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's 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 underjaw'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 on it not chew, you understand, but only
jest grip and hang on till they thronged 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 bolt, 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 'peered sur-
prised, 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 bolt 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 of 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 straightforward 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 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, 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 tea-
spoon 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's 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 ketchd
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 button-
holed me and recommenced:
"Well, thish-yer Smiley had a yeller 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.
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Lembrando o 176º aniversário de Mark Twain.
