Original Printed Version
Mark Twain's "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" went through several revisions. Here is its first printing in the The New York Saturday Press, published under the title "Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog," on November 18, 1865.
Mark Twain's "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" went through several revisions. Here is its first printing in the The New York Saturday Press, published under the title "Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog," on November 18, 1865.
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Twain, Mark, "Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog," The New York Saturday Press, Nov. 18, 1865, pp. 248-49. Web. 31 Aug. 2013.
<http://digital.lib.lehigh.edu/cdm4/nysp_viewer.php?DMTHUMB=1&search=&ptr=605&CISOPTR=595>
<http://digital.lib.lehigh.edu/cdm4/nysp_viewer.php?DMTHUMB=1&search=&ptr=605&CISOPTR=596>
<http://digital.lib.lehigh.edu/cdm4/nysp_viewer.php?DMTHUMB=1&search=&ptr=605&CISOPTR=595>
<http://digital.lib.lehigh.edu/cdm4/nysp_viewer.php?DMTHUMB=1&search=&ptr=605&CISOPTR=596>
Introduction and Text from the University of Virginia Library
MT jumped into national prominence on the basis of this tale about Jim Smiley and his frog, first published in a New York newspaper in November, 1865 and quickly reprinted around the country. Though MT later discounted it as a "villainous backwoods sketch," it already adumbrates motifs that would stick with him throughout his career -- including the use of a vernacular speaker and the unexplained appearance of a mysterious stranger. MT also kept returning to the tale itself, often giving a shortened version of it in his lectures and readings -- including the tour with Cable he arranged to promote Huck Finn. I include it among the sources of Huck Finn, though, essentially for the way it shows MT developing the possibilities of a deadpan narrator. Like Simon Wheeler, Huck tells a tale that is designed to make readers laugh without, as MT puts it below, "without ever smiling." From early on in his career, MT believed that when a humorist gave no sign that he understood the meaning of the story he was telling it made the audience that much more likely to laugh. Of course, in Huck Finn the narrative "innocence" of the storyteller is being put to much more profound thematic uses.
MT revised his most famous sketch several times, in modest ways.
The text below is the 1865 version, which was titled "Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog."
MT jumped into national prominence on the basis of this tale about Jim Smiley and his frog, first published in a New York newspaper in November, 1865 and quickly reprinted around the country. Though MT later discounted it as a "villainous backwoods sketch," it already adumbrates motifs that would stick with him throughout his career -- including the use of a vernacular speaker and the unexplained appearance of a mysterious stranger. MT also kept returning to the tale itself, often giving a shortened version of it in his lectures and readings -- including the tour with Cable he arranged to promote Huck Finn. I include it among the sources of Huck Finn, though, essentially for the way it shows MT developing the possibilities of a deadpan narrator. Like Simon Wheeler, Huck tells a tale that is designed to make readers laugh without, as MT puts it below, "without ever smiling." From early on in his career, MT believed that when a humorist gave no sign that he understood the meaning of the story he was telling it made the audience that much more likely to laugh. Of course, in Huck Finn the narrative "innocence" of the storyteller is being put to much more profound thematic uses.
MT revised his most famous sketch several times, in modest ways.
The text below is the 1865 version, which was titled "Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog."
The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
Mr. A. Ward,
Dear Sir: -- Well, I called on good-natured, garrulous old Simon
Wheeler, and inquired after your friend, Leonidas W. Smiley, as you requested me
to do, and I hereunto append the result. If you can get any information out of
it you are cordially welcome to it. I have a lurking suspicion that your
Leonidas W. Smiley is a myth -- that you never knew such a personage, and that
you 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 your design, Mr. Ward, it will gratify you to know
that it succeeded.
I found Simon Wheeler dozing comfortably by the bar-room stove
of the old, dilapidated tavern in the ancient mining camp of Boomerang, 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 this village of Boomerang. 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 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 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, hewas 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 reglar, 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 any wheres,
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 anything -- 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 him 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 Providence, she'd get well yet -- and Smiley, before he thought,
says, "Well, I'll resk two-and-a-half that 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
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 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 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 to it --
not chaw, 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 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 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 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 didlearn him, too. He'd give him a little
hunch 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 ketching 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 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 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 ben 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 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 out-jump 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."
"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 ary 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 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's, 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 wasn'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 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 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 go and 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"
"O, curse Smiley and his afflicted cow!" I muttered, good-naturedly, and bidding
the old gentleman good-day, I departed.
Mr. A. Ward,
Dear Sir: -- Well, I called on good-natured, garrulous old Simon
Wheeler, and inquired after your friend, Leonidas W. Smiley, as you requested me
to do, and I hereunto append the result. If you can get any information out of
it you are cordially welcome to it. I have a lurking suspicion that your
Leonidas W. Smiley is a myth -- that you never knew such a personage, and that
you 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 your design, Mr. Ward, it will gratify you to know
that it succeeded.
I found Simon Wheeler dozing comfortably by the bar-room stove
of the old, dilapidated tavern in the ancient mining camp of Boomerang, 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 this village of Boomerang. 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 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 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, hewas 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 reglar, 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 any wheres,
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 anything -- 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 him 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 Providence, she'd get well yet -- and Smiley, before he thought,
says, "Well, I'll resk two-and-a-half that 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
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 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 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 to it --
not chaw, 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 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 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 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 didlearn him, too. He'd give him a little
hunch 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 ketching 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 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 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 ben 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 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 out-jump 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."
"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 ary 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 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's, 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 wasn'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 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 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 go and 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"
"O, curse Smiley and his afflicted cow!" I muttered, good-naturedly, and bidding
the old gentleman good-day, I departed.
Twain, Mark, "Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog," Web. 31 Aug. 2013.
<http://twain.lib.virginia.edu/huckfinn/jumpfrog.html>
<http://twain.lib.virginia.edu/huckfinn/jumpfrog.html>
Or download here.
Digitized Books
Read a printed copy of "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" from 1867 online. Click here.
Read a printed copy of "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" from 1867 online. Click here.
Read a printed copy of "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" from 1869 online. Click here.
Audio
Here is "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," read aloud below. It is a version closer to the 1867 and 1869 editions.
Here is "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," read aloud below. It is a version closer to the 1867 and 1869 editions.
Twain, Mark, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," read by Christina Perez. Web. 31 Aug. 2013.
<http://archive.org/details/Episode1TheCelebratedJumpingFrogOfCalaverasCounty>
<http://archive.org/details/Episode1TheCelebratedJumpingFrogOfCalaverasCounty>
Questions for the Text
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.2
What would you say is the central idea or theme of this story?
Analyze in detail how that theme or central idea develops over the course of the text.
How does that theme or idea emerge or change, and what details can you point to that show that?
Provide an objective summary of the text (as opposed to one that is deeply personal).
To be continued....
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.2
What would you say is the central idea or theme of this story?
Analyze in detail how that theme or central idea develops over the course of the text.
How does that theme or idea emerge or change, and what details can you point to that show that?
Provide an objective summary of the text (as opposed to one that is deeply personal).
To be continued....
Common Core State Standards
Key Ideas and Details
<http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/RL/9-10>
Key Ideas and Details
- CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.1 Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.
- CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.2 Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text.
- CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.3 Analyze how complex characters (e.g., those with multiple or conflicting motivations) develop over the course of a text, interact with other characters, and advance the plot or develop the theme.
- CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.4 Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the cumulative impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone (e.g., how the language evokes a sense of time and place; how it sets a formal or informal tone).
- CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.5 Analyze how an author’s choices concerning how to structure a text, order events within it (e.g., parallel plots), and manipulate time (e.g., pacing, flashbacks) create such effects as mystery, tension, or surprise.
- CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.6 Analyze a particular point of view or cultural experience reflected in a work of literature from outside the United States, drawing on a wide reading of world literature.
- CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.7 Analyze the representation of a subject or a key scene in two different artistic mediums, including what is emphasized or absent in each treatment (e.g., Auden’s “Musée des Beaux Arts” and Breughel’s Landscape with the Fall of Icarus).
- (RL.9-10.8 not applicable to literature)
- CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.9 Analyze how an author draws on and transforms source material in a specific work (e.g., how Shakespeare treats a theme or topic from Ovid or the Bible or how a later author draws on a play by Shakespeare).
- CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.10 By the end of grade 9, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poems, in the grades 9-10 text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range.
By the end of grade 10, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poems, at the high end of the grades 9-10 text complexity band independently and proficiently.
<http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/RL/9-10>
Additional Considerations and Exploration:
Look at the changes made in the different versions. Are some of them printing errors, and others changes by the author? Why did the author make the changes? What can we learn about humor in writing from the changes? How does the reader respond to the different versions? Why? How many other versions either spoken or written can you find? Think of these and other questions as you look at the different versions, and write down the questions that you have.
Look at the changes made in the different versions. Are some of them printing errors, and others changes by the author? Why did the author make the changes? What can we learn about humor in writing from the changes? How does the reader respond to the different versions? Why? How many other versions either spoken or written can you find? Think of these and other questions as you look at the different versions, and write down the questions that you have.
Language challenge: For those of you who know French, find the version in French, and also look at Twain's back-translation of it, in which he translated the story back out of the French word-for-word into English.