Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor, Volume I
General
Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor, Volume I
American wit and humor
"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 sad like, "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 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 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 forepaws 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 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 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 Reverend _Leonidas W._ Smiley, and so I
started away.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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