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I had come +to believe it infallible in its judgments about the time of day, and to +consider its constitution and its anatomy imperishable. But at last, one +night, I let it run down. I grieved about it as if it were a recognized +messenger and forerunner of calamity. But by and by I cheered up, set +the watch by guess, and commanded my bodings and superstitions to depart. +Next day I stepped into the chief jeweler's to set it by the exact time, +and the head of the establishment took it out of my hand and proceeded to +set it for me. Then he said, "She is four minutes slow-regulator wants +pushing up." I tried to stop him—tried to make him understand that the +watch kept perfect time. But no; all this human cabbage could see was +that the watch was four minutes slow, and the regulator must be pushed up +a little; and so, while I danced around him in anguish, and implored him +to let the watch alone, he calmly and cruelly did the shameful deed. My +watch began to gain. It gained faster and faster day by day. Within the +week it sickened to a raging fever, and its pulse went up to a hundred +and fifty in the shade. At the end of two months it had left all the +timepieces of the town far in the rear, and was a fraction over thirteen +days ahead of the almanac. It was away into November enjoying the snow, +while the October leaves were still turning. It hurried up house rent, +bills payable, and such things, in such a ruinous way that I could not +abide it. I took it to the watchmaker to be regulated. He asked me if I +had ever had it repaired. I said no, it had never needed any repairing. +He looked a look of vicious happiness and eagerly pried the watch open, +and then put a small dice-box into his eye and peered into its machinery. +He said it wanted cleaning and oiling, besides regulating—come in a +week. After being cleaned and oiled, and regulated, my watch slowed down +to that degree that it ticked like a tolling bell. I began to be left by +trains,</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="p018.jpg (23K)" src="images/p018.jpg" height="429" width="341"> +</center><br><br><br><br> + +<p>I failed all appointments, I got to missing my dinner; my watch +strung out three days' grace to four and let me go to protest; +I gradually drifted back into yesterday, then day before, then into last +week, and by and by the comprehension came upon me that all solitary and +alone I was lingering along in week before last, and the world was out of +sight. I seemed to detect in myself a sort of sneaking fellow-feeling +for the mummy in the museum, and a desire to swap news with him. I went +to a watchmaker again. He took the watch all to pieces while I waited, +and then said the barrel was "swelled." He said he could reduce it in +three days. After this the watch averaged well, but nothing more. For +half a day it would go like the very mischief, and keep up such a barking +and wheezing and whooping and sneezing and snorting, that I could not +hear myself think for the disturbance; and as long as it held out there +was not a watch in the land that stood any chance against it. But the +rest of the day it would keep on slowing down and fooling along until all +the clocks it had left behind caught up again. So at last, at the end of +twenty-four hours, it would trot up to the judges' stand all right and +just in time. It would show a fair and square average, and no man could +say it had done more or less than its duty. But a correct average is +only a mild virtue in a watch, and I took this instrument to another +watchmaker. He said the king-bolt was broken. I said I was glad it was +nothing more serious. To tell the plain truth, I had no idea what the +king-bolt was, but I did not choose to appear ignorant to a stranger.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="p019.jpg (28K)" src="images/p019.jpg" height="441" width="347"> +</center><br><br><br><br> + +<p>He repaired the king-bolt, but what the watch gained in one way it lost +in another. It would run awhile and then stop awhile, and then run +awhile again, and so on, using its own discretion about the intervals. +And every time it went off it kicked back like a musket. I padded my +breast for a few days, but finally took the watch to another watchmaker. +He picked it all to pieces, and turned the ruin over and over under his +glass; and then he said there appeared to be something the matter with +the hair-trigger. He fixed it, and gave it a fresh start. It did well +now, except that always at ten minutes to ten the hands would shut +together like a pair of scissors, and from that time forth they would +travel together. The oldest man in the world could not make head or tail +of the time of day by such a watch, and so I went again to have the thing +repaired. This person said that the crystal had got bent, and that the +mainspring was not straight. He also remarked that part of the works +needed half-soling. He made these things all right, and then my +timepiece performed unexceptionably, save that now and then, after +working along quietly for nearly eight hours, everything inside would let +go all of a sudden and begin to buzz like a bee, and the hands would +straightway begin to spin round and round so fast that their +individuality was lost completely, and they simply seemed a delicate +spider's web over the face of the watch. She would reel off the next +twenty-four hours in six or seven minutes, and then stop with a bang. +I went with a heavy heart to one more watchmaker, and looked on while he +took her to pieces. Then I prepared to cross-question him rigidly, for +this thing was getting serious. The watch had cost two hundred dollars +originally, and I seemed to have paid out two or three thousand for +repairs. While I waited and looked on I presently recognized in this +watchmaker an old acquaintance—a steamboat engineer of other days, and +not a good engineer, either. He examined all the parts carefully, just +as the other watchmakers had done, and then delivered his verdict with +the same confidence of manner.</p> + +<p>He said:</p> + +<p>"She makes too much steam—you want to hang the monkey-wrench on the +safety-valve!"</p> + +<p>I brained him on the spot, and had him buried at my own expense.</p> + +<p>My uncle William (now deceased, alas!) used to say that a good horse was, +a good horse until it had run away once, and that a good watch was a good +watch until the repairers got a chance at it. And he used to wonder what +became of all the unsuccessful tinkers, and gunsmiths, and shoemakers, +and engineers, and blacksmiths; but nobody could ever tell him.</p> + + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="political">POLITICAL ECONOMY</a></h2></center> +<br> + +<center><img alt="p021.jpg (104K)" src="images/p021.jpg" height="881" width="650"> +</center><br><br><br><br> + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<br> Political Economy is the basis of all good government. The wisest + men of all ages have brought to bear upon this subject the— +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>[Here I was interrupted and informed that a stranger wished to see me +down at the door. I went and confronted him, and asked to know his +business, struggling all the time to keep a tight rein on my seething +political-economy ideas, and not let them break away from me or get +tangled in their harness. And privately I wished the stranger was in the +bottom of the canal with a cargo of wheat on top of him. I was all in a +fever, but he was cool. He said he was sorry to disturb me, but as he +was passing he noticed that I needed some lightning-rods. I said, "Yes, +yes—go on—what about it?" He said there was nothing about it, in +particular—nothing except that he would like to put them up for me. +I am new to housekeeping; have been used to hotels and boarding-houses +all my life. Like anybody else of similar experience, I try to appear +(to strangers) to be an old housekeeper; consequently I said in an +offhand way that I had been intending for some time to have six or eight +lightning-rods put up, but—The stranger started, and looked inquiringly +at me, but I was serene. I thought that if I chanced to make any +mistakes, he would not catch me by my countenance. He said he would +rather have my custom than any man's in town. I said, "All right," and +started off to wrestle with my great subject again, when he called me +back and said it would be necessary to know exactly how many "points" I +wanted put up, what parts of the house I wanted them on, and what quality +of rod I preferred. It was close quarters for a man not used to the +exigencies of housekeeping; but I went through creditably, and he +probably never suspected that I was a novice. I told him to put up eight +"points," and put them all on the roof, and use the best quality of rod. +He said he could furnish the "plain" article at 20 cents a foot; +"coppered," 25 cents; "zinc-plated spiral-twist," at 30 cents, that would +stop a streak of lightning any time, no matter where it was bound, and +"render its errand harmless and its further progress apocryphal." I said +apocryphal was no slouch of a word, emanating from the source it did, +but, philology aside, I liked the spiral-twist and would take that brand. +Then he said he could make two hundred and fifty feet answer; but to do +it right, and make the best job in town of it, and attract the admiration +of the just and the unjust alike, and compel all parties to say they +never saw a more symmetrical and hypothetical display of lightning-rods +since they were born, he supposed he really couldn't get along without +four hundred, though he was not vindictive, and trusted he was willing to +try. I said, go ahead and use four hundred, and make any kind of a job +he pleased out of it, but let me get back to my work. So I got rid of +him at last; and now, after half an hour spent in getting my train of +political-economy thoughts coupled together again, I am ready to go on +once more.]</p> + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<br> richest treasures of their genius, their experience of life, and + their learning. The great lights of commercial jurisprudence, + international confraternity, and biological deviation, of all ages, + all civilizations, and all nationalities, from Zoroaster down to + Horace Greeley, have— +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>[Here I was interrupted again, and required to go down and confer further +with that lightning-rod man. I hurried off, boiling and surging with +prodigious thoughts wombed in words of such majesty that each one of them +was in itself a straggling procession of syllables that might be fifteen +minutes passing a given point, and once more I confronted him—he so calm +and sweet, I so hot and frenzied. He was standing in the contemplative +attitude of the Colossus of Rhodes, with one foot on my infant tuberose, +and the other among my pansies, his hands on his hips, his hat-brim +tilted forward, one eye shut and the other gazing critically and +admiringly in the direction of my principal chimney. He said now there +was a state of things to make a man glad to be alive; and added, "I leave +it to you if you ever saw anything more deliriously picturesque than +eight lightning-rods on one chimney?" I said I had no present +recollection of anything that transcended it. He said that in his +opinion nothing on earth but Niagara Falls was superior to it in the way +of natural scenery. All that was needed now, he verily believed, to make +my house a perfect balm to the eye, was to kind of touch up the other +chimneys a little, and thus "add to the generous 'coup d'oeil' a soothing +uniformity of achievement which would allay the excitement naturally +consequent upon the 'coup d'etat.'" I asked him if he learned to talk +out of a book, and if I could borrow it anywhere? He smiled pleasantly, +and said that his manner of speaking was not taught in books, and that +nothing but familiarity with lightning could enable a man to handle his +conversational style with impunity. He then figured up an estimate, and +said that about eight more rods scattered about my roof would about fix +me right, and he guessed five hundred feet of stuff would do it; and +added that the first eight had got a little the start of him, so to +speak, and used up a mere trifle of material more than he had calculated +on—a hundred feet or along there. I said I was in a dreadful hurry, +and I wished we could get this business permanently mapped out, so that I +could go on with my work. He said, "I could have put up those eight +rods, and marched off about my business—some men would have done it. +But no; I said to myself, this man is a stranger to me, and I will die +before I'll wrong him; there ain't lightning-rods enough on that house, +and for one I'll never stir out of my tracks till I've done as I would be +done by, and told him so. Stranger, my duty is accomplished; if the +recalcitrant and dephlogistic messenger of heaven strikes your—" +"There, now, there," I said, "put on the other eight—add five hundred +feet of spiral-twist—do anything and everything you want to do; but calm +your sufferings, and try to keep your feelings where you can reach them +with the dictionary. Meanwhile, if we understand each other now, I will +go to work again."</p> + +<p>I think I have been sitting here a full hour this time, trying to get +back to where I was when my train of thought was broken up by the last +interruption; but I believe I have accomplished it at last, and may +venture to proceed again.]</p> + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<br> wrestled with this great subject, and the greatest among them have + found it a worthy adversary, and one that always comes up fresh and + smiling after every throw. The great Confucius said that he would + rather be a profound political economist than chief of police. + Cicero frequently said that political economy was the grandest + consummation that the human mind was capable of consuming; and even + our own Greeley had said vaguely but forcibly that "Political— +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>[Here the lightning-rod man sent up another call for me. I went down in +a state of mind bordering on impatience. He said he would rather have +died than interrupt me, but when he was employed to do a job, and that +job was expected to be done in a clean, workmanlike manner, and when it +was finished and fatigue urged him to seek the rest and recreation he +stood so much in need of, and he was about to do it, but looked up and +saw at a glance that all the calculations had been a little out, and if a +thunder-storm were to come up, and that house, which he felt a personal +interest in, stood there with nothing on earth to protect it but sixteen +lightning-rods—"Let us have peace!" I shrieked. "Put up a hundred and +fifty! Put some on the kitchen! Put a dozen on the barn! Put a couple +on the cow! Put one on the cook!—scatter them all over the persecuted +place till it looks like a zinc-plated, spiral-twisted, silver-mounted +cane-brake! Move! Use up all the material you can get your hands on, and +when you run out of lightning-rods put up ramrods, cam-rods, stair-rods, +piston-rods—anything that will pander to your dismal appetite for +artificial scenery, and bring respite to my raging brain and healing to +my lacerated soul!" Wholly unmoved—further than to smile sweetly—this +iron being simply turned back his wrist-bands daintily, and said he would +now proceed to hump himself. Well, all that was nearly three hours ago. +It is questionable whether I am calm enough yet to write on the noble +theme of political economy, but I cannot resist the desire to try, for it +is the one subject that is nearest to my heart and dearest to my brain of +all this world's philosophy.]</p> + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<br> economy is heaven's best boon to man." When the loose but gifted + Byron lay in his Venetian exile he observed that, if it could be + granted him to go back and live his misspent life over again, he + would give his lucid and unintoxicated intervals to the composition, + not of frivolous rhymes, but of essays upon political economy. + Washington loved this exquisite science; such names as Baker, + Beckwith, Judson, Smith, are imperishably linked with it; and even + imperial Homer, in the ninth book of the Iliad, has said: +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><blockquote> +<br> Fiat justitia, ruat coelum, +<br> Post mortem unum, ante bellum, +<br> Hic jacet hoc, ex-parte res, +<br> Politicum e-conomico est. +</blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote> + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<br> The grandeur of these conceptions of the old poet, together with the + felicity of the wording which clothes them, and the sublimity of the + imagery whereby they are illustrated, have singled out that stanza, + and made it more celebrated than any that ever— +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>["Now, not a word out of you—not a single word. Just state your bill +and relapse into impenetrable silence for ever and ever on these +premises. Nine hundred, dollars? Is that all? This check for the +amount will be honored at any respectable bank in America. What is that +multitude of people gathered in the street for? How?—'looking at the +lightning-rods!' Bless my life, did they never see any lightning-rods +before? Never saw 'such a stack of them on one establishment,' did I +understand you to say? I will step down and critically observe this +popular ebullition of ignorance."]</p> + +<p>THREE DAYS LATER.—We are all about worn out. For four-and-twenty hours +our bristling premises were the talk and wonder of the town. The +theaters languished, for their happiest scenic inventions were tame and +commonplace compared with my lightning-rods. Our street was blocked +night and day with spectators, and among them were many who came from +the country to see. It was a blessed relief on the second day when a +thunderstorm came up and the lightning began to "go for" my house, as the +historian Josephus quaintly phrases it. It cleared the galleries, so to +speak. In five minutes there was not a spectator within half a mile of +my place; but all the high houses about that distance away were full, +windows, roof, and all. And well they might be, for all the falling +stars and Fourth-of-July fireworks of a generation, put together and +rained down simultaneously out of heaven in one brilliant shower upon one +helpless roof, would not have any advantage of the pyrotechnic display +that was making my house so magnificently conspicuous in the general +gloom of the storm.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="p026.jpg (86K)" src="images/p026.jpg" height="524" width="650"> +</center><br><br><br><br> + +<p>By actual count, the lightning struck at my establishment seven +hundred and sixty-four times in forty minutes, but tripped on one of +those faithful rods every time, and slid down the spiral-twist and shot +into the earth before it probably had time to be surprised at the way the +thing was done. And through all that bombardment only one patch of slates +was ripped up, and that was because, for a single instant, the rods in +the vicinity were transporting all the lightning they could possibly +accommodate. Well, nothing was ever seen like it since the world began. +For one whole day and night not a member of my family stuck his head out +of the window but he got the hair snatched off it as smooth as a +billiard-ball; and; if the reader will believe me, not one of us ever +dreamt of stirring abroad. But at last the awful siege came to an +end-because there was absolutely no more electricity left in the clouds +above us within grappling distance of my insatiable rods. Then I sallied +forth, and gathered daring workmen together, and not a bite or a nap did +we take till the premises were utterly stripped of all their terrific +armament except just three rods on the house, one on the kitchen, and one +on the barn—and, behold, these remain there even unto this day. And +then, and not till then, the people ventured to use our street again. +I will remark here, in passing, that during that fearful time I did not +continue my essay upon political economy. I am not even yet settled +enough in nerve and brain to resume it.</p> + +<p>TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN.—Parties having need of three thousand two +hundred and eleven feet of best quality zinc-plated spiral-twist +lightning-rod stuff, and sixteen hundred and thirty-one silver-tipped +points, all in tolerable repair (and, although much worn by use, still +equal to any ordinary emergency), can hear of a bargain by addressing +the publisher.</p> + + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="frog"></a>THE JUMPING FROG</h2></center> +<br> +<center><h3>[written about 1865]</h3></center> +<br> +<img alt="p028.jpg (125K)" src="images/p028.jpg" height="867" width="650"> +<br><br><br><br> + +<center><h3>IN ENGLISH. THEN IN FRENCH. THEN CLAWED BACK INTO A CIVILIZED LANGUAGE +ONCE MORE BY PATIENT, UNREMUNERATED TOIL.</h3></center> +<br> + + +<p>Even a criminal is entitled to fair play; and certainly when a man who +has done no harm has been unjustly treated, he is privileged to do his +best to right himself. My attention has just been called to an article +some three years old in a French Magazine entitled, 'Revue des Deux +Mondes' (Review of Some Two Worlds), wherein the writer treats of "Les +Humoristes Americaines" (These Humorist Americans). I am one of these +humorist American dissected by him, and hence the complaint I am making.</p> + +<p>This gentleman's article is an able one (as articles go, in the French, +where they always tangle up everything to that degree that when you start +into a sentence you never know whether you are going to come out alive or +not). It is a very good article and the writer says all manner of kind +and complimentary things about me—for which I am sure I thank him with all +my heart; but then why should he go and spoil all his praise by one +unlucky experiment? What I refer to is this: he says my Jumping Frog is +a funny story, but still he can't see why it should ever really convulse +any one with laughter—and straightway proceeds to translate it into +French in order to prove to his nation that there is nothing so very +extravagantly funny about it. Just there is where my complaint +originates. He has not translated it at all; he has simply mixed it all +up; it is no more like the Jumping Frog when he gets through with it than +I am like a meridian of longitude. But my mere assertion is not proof; +wherefore I print the French version, that all may see that I do not +speak falsely; furthermore, in order that even the unlettered may know my +injury and give me their compassion, I have been at infinite pains and +trouble to retranslate this French version back into English; and to tell +the truth I have well-nigh worn myself out at it, having scarcely rested +from my work during five days and nights. I cannot speak the French +language, but I can translate very well, though not fast, I being +self-educated. I ask the reader to run his eye over the original English +version of the jumping Frog, and then read the French or my +retranslation, and kindly take notice how the Frenchman has riddled the +grammar. I think it is the worst I ever saw; and yet the French are +called a polished nation. If I had a boy that put sentences together as +they do, I would polish him to some purpose. Without further +introduction, the Jumping Frog, as I originally wrote it, was as follows +[after it will be found the French version—, and after the latter my retranslation from the +French]</p> + + + +<br><br> +<center><h3>THE NOTORIOUS JUMPING FROG OF CALAVERAS COUNTY<br> [Pronounced Cal-e-va-ras]</h3> +</center> +<p>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 to death +with some exasperating reminiscence of him as long and as tedious as it +should be useless to me. If that was the design, it succeeded.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="p030.jpg (44K)" src="images/p030.jpg" height="483" width="385"> +</center><br><br><br><br> + +<p>I found Simon Wheeler dozing comfortably by the bar-room stove of the +dilapidated tavern in the decayed 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 that 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 resident of Angel's Camp. I added that if +Mr. Wheeler could tell me anything about this Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, +I would feel under many obligations to him.</p> + +<p>Simon Wheeler backed me into a corner and blockaded me there with his +chair, and then sat 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 his +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 anything 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.' I let him go +on in his own way, and never interrupted him once.</p> + +<p>"Rev. Leonidas W. H'm, Reverend Le—well, 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 warn't +finished when he first come to the camp; but anyway, he was the +curiousest man about always betting on anything that turned up you ever +see, if he could get anybody 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 solit'ry thing mentioned but +that feller'd offer to bet on it, and take any side you please, as I was +just telling you.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="p031.jpg (27K)" src="images/p031.jpg" height="433" width="355"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>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 see a straddle-bug start to go anywheres, he would bet +you how long it would take him to get to—to 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'd 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 up and asked him how she was, and he said she was +considerable better—thank the Lord for his inf'nite 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 resk two-and-a-half she +don't anyway.'</p> + +<p>"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 +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 among 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.</p> + +<p>"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 under-jaw'd begin to stick out like the fo'castle of +a steamboat, and his teeth would uncover and shine 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 just +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 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 see 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 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.</p> + +<p>"Well, thish-yer Smiley had rat-tarriers, and chicken cocks, and tomcats +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'lated to educate 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 maybe 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 kep' him in +practice so constant, that he'd nail a fly every time as fur 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 ag'in 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.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="p033.jpg (37K)" src="images/p033.jpg" height="573" width="591"> +</center><br><br><br><br> + +<p>"Well, Smiley kep' 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 acrost him with his box, and says:</p> + +<p>"'What might it be that you've got in the box?'</p> + +<p>"And Smiley says, sorter indifferent-like, 'It might be a parrot, or it +might be a canary, maybe, but it ain't—it's only just a frog.'</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"'Well,' Smiley says, easy and careless, 'he's good enough for one thing, +I should judge—he can outjump any frog in Calaveras County.</p> + +<p>"The feller took the box again, and took another long, particular look, +and give it back to Smiley, and says, very deliberate, 'Well,' he says, +'I don't see no p'ints about that frog that's any better'n any other +frog.'</p> + +<p>"'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 thet he can outjump any frog in Calaveras County.'</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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:</p> + +<p>"'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.</p> + +<p>"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.'</p> + +<p>"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—"</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="p035.jpg (39K)" src="images/p035.jpg" height="487" width="385"> +</center><br><br><br><br> + +<p>[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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>At the door I met the sociable Wheeler returning, and he buttonholed me +and recommenced:</p> + +<p>"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—"</p> + +<p>However, lacking both time and inclination, I did not wait to hear about +the afflicted cow, but took my leave.</p> + +<br><br> +<p> +Now let the learned look upon this picture and say if iconoclasm can +further go:</p> + +<center><p>[From the Revue des Deux Mondes, of July 15th, 1872.]</p> +<br> + ....................... +<br> +<h3>THE JUMPING FROG</h3></center> + +<blockquote><blockquote> + +<p> +[From the Revue des Deux Mondes, of July 15th, 1872.] +</p> +<pre> + ....................... + +</pre> +<center> +LA GRENOUILLE SAUTEUSE DU COMTE DE CALAVERAS +</center> +<p> +"—Il y avait, une fois ici un individu connu sous le nom de Jim Smiley: +c'était dans l'hiver de 49, peut-être bien au printemps de 50, je ne me +reappelle pas exactement. Ce qui me fait croire que c'était l'un ou +l'autre, c'est que je me souviens que le grand bief n'était pas achevé +lorsqu'il arriva au camp pour la premiére fois, mais de toutes facons il +était l'homme le plus friand de paris qui se pût voir, pariant sur tout +ce qui se présentait, quand il pouvait trouver un adversaire, et, quand +n'en trouvait pas il passait du côté opposé. Tout ce qui convenait à +l'autre lui convenait; pourvu qu'il eût un pari, Smiley était satisfait. +Et il avait une chance! une chance inouie: presque toujours il gagnait. +It faut dire qu'il était toujours prêt à s'exposer, qu'on ne pouvait +mentionner la moindre chose sans que ce gaillard offrît de parier +là-dessus n'importe quoi et de prendre le côte que l'on voudrait, comme +je vous le disais tout à l'heure. S'il y avait des courses, vous le +trouviez riche ou ruiné à la fin; s'il y avait un combat de chiens, il +apportait son enjeu; il l'apportait pour un combat de chats, pour un +combat de coqs;—parbleu! si vous aviez vu deux oiseaux sur une haie il +vous aurait offert de parier lequel s'envolerait le premier, et s'il y +aviat 'meeting' au camp, il venait parier régulièrement pour le curé +Walker, qu'il jugeait être le meilleur prédicateur des environs, et qui +l'était en effet, et un brave homme. Il aurait rencontré une punaise de +bois en chemin, qu'il aurait parié sur le temps qu'il lui faudrait pour +aller où elle voudrait aller, et si vous l'aviez pris au mot, it aurait +suivi la punaise jusqu'au Mexique, sans se soucier d'aller si loin, ni du +temps qu'il y perdrait. Une fois la femme du curé Walker fut très malade +pendant longtemps, il semblait qu'on ne la sauverait pas; mais un matin le +curé arrive, et Smiley lui demande comment ella va et il dit qu'elle est +bien mieux, grâce a l'infinie miséricorde tellement mieux qu'avec la +bénédiction de la Providence elle s'en tirerait, et voilá que, sans y +penser, Smiley répond:—Eh bien! je gage deux et demi qu'elle mourra tout +de même. +</p> +<p> +"Ce Smiley avait une jument que les gars appelaient le bidet du quart +d'heure, mais seulement pour plaisanter, vous comprenez, parce que, bien +entendu, elle était plus vite que ca! Et il avait coutume de gagner de +l'argent avec cette bête, quoi-qu'elle fût poussive, cornarde, toujours +prise d'asthme, de coliques ou de consomption, ou de quelque chose +d'approchant. On lui donnait 2 ou 300 'yards' au départ, puis on la +dépassait sans peine; mais jamais à la fin elle ne manquait de +s'échauffer, de s'exaspérer et elle arrivait, s'écartant, se défendant, +ses jambes grêles en l'air devant les obstacles, quelquefois les évitant +et faisant avec cela plus de poussière qu'aucun cheval, plus de bruit +surtout avec ses éternumens et reniflemens.—-crac! elle arrivait donc +toujours première d'une tête, aussi juste qu'on peut le mesurer. Et il +avait un petit bouledogue qui, à le voir, ne valait pas un sou; on aurait +cru que parier contre lui c'était voler, tant il était ordinaire; mais +aussitôt les enjeux faits, il devenait un autre chien. Sa mâchoire +inférieure commencait à ressortir comme un gaillard d'avant, ses dents se +découvcraient brillantes commes des fournaises, et un chien pouvait le +taquiner, l'exciter, le mordre, le jeter deux ou trois fois par-dessus +son épaule, André Jackson, c'était le nom du chien, André Jackson prenait +cela tranquillement, comme s'il ne se fût jamais attendu à autre chose, +et quand les paris étaient doublés et redoublés contre lui, il vous +saisissait l'autre chien juste à l'articulation de la jambe de derrière, +et il ne la lâchait plus, non pas qu'il la mâchât, vous concevez, mais il +s'y serait tenu pendu jusqu'à ce qu'on jetât l'éponge en l'air, fallût-il +attendre un an. Smiley gagnait toujours avec cette bête-là; +malheureusement ils ont fini par dresser un chien qui n'avait pas de +pattes de derrière, parce qu'on les avait sciées, et quand les choses +furent au point qu'il voulait, et qu'il en vint à se jeter sur son +morceau favori, le pauvre chien comprit en un instant qu'on s'était moqué +de lui, et que l'autre le tenait. Vous n'avez jamais vu personne avoir +l'air plus penaud et plus découragé; il ne fit aucun effort pour gagner +le combat et fut rudement secoué, de sorte que, regardant Smiley comme +pour lui dire:—Mon coeur est brisé, c'est ta faute; pourquoi m'avoir +livré à un chien qui n'a pas de pattes de derrière, puisque c'est par là +que je les bats?—il s'en alla en clopinant, et se coucha pour mourir. +Ah! c'était un bon chien, cet André Jackson, et il se serait fait un nom, +s'il avait vécu, car il y avait de l'etoffe en lui, il avait du génie, +je la sais, bien que de grandes occasions lui aient manqué; mais il est +impossible de supposer qu'un chien capable de se battre comme lui, +certaines circonstances étant données, ait manqué de talent. Je me sens +triste toutes les fois que je pense à son dernier combat et au dénoûment +qu'il a eu. Eh bien! ce Smiley nourrissait des terriers à rats, et des +coqs combat, et des chats, et toute sorte de choses, au point qu'il était +toujours en mesure de vous tenir tête, et qu'avec sa rage de paris on +n'avait plus de repos. Il attrapa un jour une grenouille et l'emporta +chez lui, disant qu'il prétendait faire son éducation; vous me croirez si +vous voulez, mais pendant trois mois il n'a rien fait que lui apprendre à +sauter dans une cour retirée de sa maison. Et je vous réponds qu'il avait +reussi. Il lui donnait un petit coup par derrière, et l'instant d'après +vous voyiez la grenouille tourner en l'air comme un beignet au-dessus de +la poêle, faire une culbute, quelquefois deux, lorsqu'elle était bien +partie, et retomber sur ses pattes comme un chat. Il l'avait dressée +dans l'art de gober des mouches, er l'y exercait continuellement, si bien +qu'une mouche, du plus loin qu'elle apparaissait, était une mouche +perdue. Smiley avait coutume de dire que tout ce qui manquait à une +grenouille, c'était l'éducation, qu'avec l'éducation elle pouvait faire +presque tout, et je le crois. Tenez, je l'ai vu poser Daniel Webster là +sur se plancher,—Daniel Webster était le nom de la grenouille,—et lui +chanter: Des mouches! Daniel, des mouches!—En un clin d'oeil, Daniel +avait bondi et saisi une mouche ici sur le comptoir, puis sauté de +nouveau par terre, où il restait vraiment à se gratter la tête avec sa +patte de derrière, comme s'il n'avait pas eu la moindre idée de sa +superiorité. Jamais vous n'avez grenouille vu de aussi modeste, aussi +naturelle, douee comme elle l'était! Et quand il s'agissait de sauter +purement et simplement sur terrain plat, elle faisait plus de chemin en +un saut qu'aucune bete de son espèce que vous puissiez connaître. Sauter +à plat, c'était son fort! Quand il s'agissait de cela, Smiley entassait +les enjeux sur elle tant qu'il lui, restait un rouge liard. Il faut le +reconnaitre, Smiley était monstrueusement fier de sa grenouille, et il en +avait le droit, car des gens qui avaient voyagé, qui avaient tout vu, +disaient qu'on lui ferait injure de la comparer à une autre; de facon que +Smiley gardait Daniel dans une petite boîte a claire-voie qu'il emportait +parfois à la Ville pour quelque pari. +</p> +<p> +"Un jour, un individu étranger au camp l'arrête aver sa boîte et lui +dit:—Qu'est-ce que vous avez donc serré là dedans? +</p> +<p> +"Smiley dit d'un air indifférent:—Cela pourrait être un perroquet ou un +serin, mais ce n'est rien de pareil, ce n'est qu'une grenouille. +</p> +<p> +"L'individu la prend, la regarde avec soin, la tourne d'un côté et de +l'autre puis il dit.—Tiens! en effet! A quoi estelle bonne? +</p> +<p> +"—Mon Dieu! répond Smiley, toujours d'un air dégagé, elle est bonne pour +une chose à mon avis, elle peut battre en sautant toute grenouille du +comté de Calaveras. +</p> +<p> +"L'individu reprend la boîte, l'examine de nouveau longuement, et la rend +à Smiley en disant d'un air délibéré:—Eh bien! je ne vois pas que cette +grenouille ait rien de mieux qu'aucune grenouille. +</p> +<p> +"—Possible que vous ne le voyiez pas, dit Smiley, possible que vous vous +entendiez en grenouilles, possible que vous ne vous y entendez point, +possible que vous avez de l'expérience, et possible que vous ne soyez +qu'un amateur. De toute manière, je parie quarante dollars qu'elle +battra en sautant n'importe quelle grenouille du comté de Calaveras. +</p> +<p> +"L'individu réfléchit une seconde et dit comme attristé:—Je ne suis +qu'un étranger ici, je n'ai pas de grenouille; mais, si j'en +avais une, je tiendrais le pari. +</p> +<p> +"—Fort bien! répond Smiley. Rien de plus facile. Si vous voulez tenir +ma boîte une minute, j'irai vous chercher une grenouille.—Voilà donc +l'individu qui garde la boîte, qui met ses quarante dollars sur ceux de +Smiley et qui attend. Il attend assez longtemps, réflechissant tout +seul, et figurez-vous qu'il prend Daniel, lui ouvre la bouche de force at +avec une cuiller à thé l'emplit de menu plomb de chasse, mais l'emplit +jusqu'au menton, puis il le pose par terre. Smiley pendant ce temps +était à barboter dans une mare. Finalement il attrape une grenouille, +l'apporte à cet individu et dit:—Maintenant, si vous êtes prêt, mettez-la +tout contra Daniel, avec leurs pattes de devant sur la même ligne, et je +donnerai le signal; puis il ajoute:—Un, deux, trois, sautez! +</p> +<p> +"Lui et l'individu touchent leurs grenouilles par derrière, et la +grenouille neuve se met à sautiller, mais Daniel se soulève lourdement, +hausse les épaules ainsi, comme un Francais; à quoi bon? il ne pouvait +bouger, il était planté solide comma une enclume, il n'avancait pas plus +que si on l'eût mis à l'ancre. Smiley fut surpris et dégoûté, mais il ne +se doutait pas du tour, bien entendu. L'individu empoche l'argent, s'en +va, et en s'en allant est-ce qu'il ne donna pas un coup de pouce +par-dessus l'épaule, comma ca, au pauvre Daniel, en disant de son air +délibéré:—Eh bien! je ne vois pas qua cette grenouille ait rien de muiex +qu'une autre. +</p> +<p> +"Smiley se gratta longtemps la tête, les yeux fixés sur Daniel; jusqu'à +ce qu'enfin il dit:—Je me demande comment diable il se fait que cette +bête ait refusé . . . Est-ce qu'elle aurait quelque chose? . . . On +croirait qu'elle est enfleé. +</p> +<p> +"Il empoigne Daniel par la peau du cou, le souléve et dit:—Le loup me +croque, s'il ne pèse pas cinq livres. +</p> +<p> +"Il le retourne, et le malheureux crache deux poignées de plomb. Quand +Smiley reconnut ce qui en était, il fut comme fou. Vous le voyez d'ici +poser sa grenouille par terra et courir aprés cet individu, mais il ne le +rattrapa jamais, et ...." +</p> +<p> +[Translation of the above back from the French:] +</p> +<center> +THE FROG JUMPING OF THE COUNTY OF CALAVERAS +</center> +<p> +It there was one time here an individual known under the name of Jim +Smiley; it was in the winter of '89, possibly well at the spring of '50, +I no me recollect not exactly. This which me makes to believe that it +was the one or the other, it is that I shall remember that the grand +flume is not achieved when he arrives at the camp for the first time, but +of all sides he was the man the most fond of to bet which one have seen, +betting upon all that which is presented, when he could find an +adversary; and when he not of it could not, he passed to the side +opposed. All that which convenienced to the other to him convenienced +also; seeing that he had a bet Smiley was satisfied. And he had a +chance! a chance even worthless; nearly always he gained. It must to say +that he was always near to himself expose, but one no could mention the +least thing without that this gaillard offered to bet the bottom, no +matter what, and to take the side that one him would, as I you it said +all at the hour (tout à l'heure). If it there was of races, you him find +rich or ruined at the end; if it, there is a combat of dogs, he bring his +bet; he himself laid always for a combat of cats, for a combat of cocks +—by-blue! If you have see two birds upon a fence, he you should have +offered of to bet which of those birds shall fly the first; and if there +is meeting at the camp (meeting au camp) he comes to bet regularly for +the curé Walker, which he judged to be the best predicator of the +neighborhood (prédicateur des environs) and which he was in effect, and a +brave man. He would encounter a bug of wood in the road, whom he will +bet upon the time which he shall take to go where she would go—and if +you him have take at the word, he will follow the bug as far as Mexique, +without himself caring to go so far; neither of the time which he there +lost. One time the woman of the cure Walker is very sick during long +time, it seemed that one not her saved not; but one morning the cure +arrives, and Smiley him demanded how she goes, and he said that she is +well better, grace to the infinite misery (lui demande comment elle va, +et il dit qu'elle est bien mieux, grâce a l'infinie miséricorde) so much +better that with the benediction of the Providence she herself of it +would pull out (elle s'en tirerait); and behold that without there +thinking Smiley responds: "Well, I gage two-and-half that she will die +all of same." +</p> +<p> +This Smiley had an animal which the boys called the nag of the quarter of +hour, but solely for pleasantry, you comprehend, because, well +understand, she was more fast as that! [Now why that exclamation?—M. T.] +And it was custom of to gain of the silver with this beast, +notwithstanding she was poussive, cornarde, always taken of asthma, of +colics or of consumption, or something of approaching. One him would +give two or three hundred yards at the departure, then one him passed +without pain; but never at the last she not fail of herself échauffer, +of herself exasperate, and she arrives herself écartant, se defendant, +her legs greles in the air before the obstacles, sometimes them elevating +and making with this more of dust than any horse, more of noise above +with his eternumens and reniflemens—crac! she arrives then always first +by one head, as just as one can it measure. And he had a small bulldog +(bouledogue!) who, to him see, no value, not a cent; one would believe +that to bet against him it was to steal, so much he was ordinary; but as +soon as the game made, she becomes another dog. Her jaw inferior +commence to project like a deck of before, his teeth themselves discover +brilliant like some furnaces, and a dog could him tackle (le taquiner), +him excite, him murder (le mordre), him throw two or three times over his +shoulder, André Jackson—this was the name of the dog—André Jackson +takes that tranquilly, as if he not himself was never expecting other +thing, and when the bets were doubled and redoubled against him, he you +seize the other dog just at the articulation of the leg of behind, and he +not it leave more, not that he it masticate, you conceive, but he himself +there shall be holding during until that one throws the sponge in the +air, must he wait a year. Smiley gained always with this beast-là; +unhappily they have finished by elevating a dog who no had not of feet of +behind, because one them had sawed; and when things were at the point +that he would, and that he came to himself throw upon his morsel +favorite, the poor dog comprehended in an instant that he himself was +deceived in him, and that the other dog him had. You no have never seen +person having the air more penaud and more discouraged; he not made no +effort to gain the combat, and was rudely shucked. +</p> +<p> +Eh bien! this Smiley nourished some terriers à rats, and some cocks of +combat, and some cats, and all sorts of things; and with his rage of +betting one no had more of repose. He trapped one day a frog and him +imported with him (et l'emporta chez lui) saying that he pretended to +make his education. You me believe if you will, but during three months +he not has nothing done but to him apprehend to jump (apprendre à sauter) +in a court retired of her mansion (de sa maison). And I you respond that +he have succeeded. He him gives a small blow by behind, and the instant +after you shall see the frog turn in the air like a grease-biscuit, make +one summersault, sometimes two, when she was well started, and refall +upon his feet like a cat. He him had accomplished in the art of to +gobble the flies (gober des mouches), and him there exercised continually +—so well that a fly at the most far that she appeared was a fly lost. +Smiley had custom to say that all which lacked to a frog it was the +education, but with the education she could do nearly all—and I him +believe. Tenez, I him have seen pose Daniel Webster there upon this +plank—Daniel Webster was the name of the frog—and to him sing, "Some +flies, Daniel, some flies!"—in a flash of the eye Daniel had bounded +and seized a fly here upon the counter, then jumped anew at +the earth, where he rested truly to himself scratch the head with his +behind foot, as if he no had not the least idea of his superiority. +Never you not have seen frog as modest, as natural, sweet as she was. +And when he himself agitated to jump purely and simply upon plain earth, +she does more ground in one jump than any beast of his species than you +can know. To jump plain-this was his strong. When he himself agitated +for that, Smiley multiplied the bets upon her as long as there to him +remained a red. It must to know, Smiley was monstrously proud of his +frog, and he of it was right, for some men who were traveled, who had all +seen, said that they to him would be injurious to him compare, to another +frog. Smiley guarded Daniel in a little box latticed which he carried +bytimes to the village for some bet. +</p> +<p> +One day an individual stranger at the camp him arrested with his box and +him said: +</p> +<p> +"What is this that you have them shut up there within?" +</p> +<p> +Smiley said, with an air indifferent: +</p> +<p> +"That could be a paroquet, or a syringe (ou un serin), but this no is +nothing of such, it not is but a frog." +</p> +<p> +The individual it took, it regarded with care, it turned from one side +and from the other, then he said: +</p> +<p> +"Tiens! in effect!—At what is she good?" +</p> +<p> +"My God!" respond Smiley, always with an air disengaged, "she is good for +one thing, to my notice (à mon avis), she can batter in jumping (elle peut +battre en sautant) all frogs of the county of Calaveras." +</p> +<p> +The individual retook the box, it examined of new longly, and it rendered +to Smiley in saying with an air deliberate: +</p> +<p> +"Eh bien! I no saw not that that frog had nothing of better than each +frog." (Je ne vois pas que cette grenouille ait rien de mieux qu'aucune +grenouille.) [If that isn't grammar gone to seed, then I count myself no +judge.—M. T.] +</p> +<p> +"Possible that you not it saw not," said Smiley, "possible that you—you +comprehend frogs; possible that you not you there comprehend nothing; +possible that you had of the experience, and possible that you not be but +an amateur. Of all manner (De toute manière) I bet forty dollars that +she batter in jumping no matter which frog of the county of Calaveras." +</p> +<p> +The individual reflected a second, and said like sad: +</p> +<p> +"I not am but a stranger here, I no have not a frog; but if I of it had +one, I would embrace the bet." +</p> +<p> +"Strong well!" respond Smiley; "nothing of more facility. If you will +hold my box a minute, I go you to search a frog (j'irai vous chercher)." +</p> +<p> +Behold, then, the individual, who guards the box, who puts his forty +dollars upon those of Smiley, and who attends (et qui attend). He +attended enough long times, reflecting all solely. And figure you that +he takes Daniel, him opens the mouth by force and with a teaspoon him +fills with shot of the hunt, even him fills just to the chin, then he him +puts by the earth. Smiley during these times was at slopping in a swamp. +Finally he trapped (attrape) a frog, him carried to that individual, and +said: +</p> +<p> +"Now if you be ready, put him all against Daniel with their before feet +upon the same line, and I give the signal"—then he added: "One, two, +three—advance!" +</p> +<p> +Him and the individual touched their frogs by behind, and the frog new +put to jump smartly, but Daniel himself lifted ponderously, exalted the +shoulders thus, like a Frenchman—to what good? he not could budge, he +is planted solid like a church, he not advance no more than if one him had +put at the anchor. +</p> +<p> +Smiley was surprised and disgusted, but he no himself doubted not of the +turn being intended (mais il ne se doutait pas du tour, bien entendu). +The individual empocketed the silver, himself with it went, and of it +himself in going is it that he no gives not a jerk of thumb over the +shoulder—like that—at the poor Daniel, in saying with his air +deliberate—(L'individu empoche l'argent, s'en va et en s'en allant +est-ce qu'il ne donne pas un coup de pouce par-dessus l'épaule, comme ça, +au pauvre Daniel, en disant de son air délibéré): +</p> +<p> +"Eh bien! I no see not that that frog has nothing of better than another." +</p> +<p> +Smiley himself scratched longtimes the head, the eyes fixed upon Daniel, +until that which at last he said: +</p> +<p> +"I me demand how the devil it makes itself that this beast has refused. +Is it that she had something? One would believe that she is stuffed." +</p> +<p> +He grasped Daniel by the skin of the neck, him lifted and said: +</p> +<p> +"The wolf me bite if he no weigh not five pounds:" +</p> +<p> +He him reversed and the unhappy belched two handfuls of shot (et le +malheureux, etc.). When Smiley recognized how it was, he was like mad. +He deposited his frog by the earth and ran after that individual, but he +not him caught never. +</p> +<p> +Such is the Jumping Frog, to the distorted French eye. I claim that I +never put together such an odious mixture of bad grammar and delirium +tremens in my life. And what has a poor foreigner like me done, to be +abused and misrepresented like this? When I say, "Well, I don't see no +p'ints about that frog that's any better'n any other frog," is it kind, +is it just, for this Frenchman to try to make it appear that I said, "Eh +bien! I no saw not that that frog had nothing of better than each frog"? +I have no heart to write more. I never felt so about anything before. +</p> +<p> +HARTFORD, March, 1875. +</p> + + + + + + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="journalism"></a>JOURNALISM IN TENNESSEE</h2></center> +<br> +<center><h3>[written about 1871]</h3></center> +<br> +<center><img alt="p044.jpg (134K)" src="images/p044.jpg" height="868" width="650"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + + +<blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><blockquote> +<br> The editor of the Memphis Avalanche swoops thus mildly down upon a + correspondent who posted him as a Radical:—"While he was writing + the first word, the middle, dotting his i's, crossing his t's, and + punching his period, he knew he was concocting a sentence that was + saturated with infamy and reeking with falsehood."—Exchange. +</blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>I was told by the physician that a Southern climate would improve my +health, and so I went down to Tennessee, and got a berth on the Morning +Glory and Johnson County War-Whoop as associate editor. When I went on +duty I found the chief editor sitting tilted back in a three-legged chair +with his feet on a pine table. There was another pine table in the room +and another afflicted chair, and both were half buried under newspapers +and scraps and sheets of manuscript. There was a wooden box of sand, +sprinkled with cigar stubs and "old soldiers," and a stove with a door +hanging by its upper hinge. The chief editor had a long-tailed black +cloth frock-coat on, and white linen pants. His boots were small and +neatly blacked. He wore a ruffled shirt, a large seal-ring, a standing +collar of obsolete pattern, and a checkered neckerchief with the ends +hanging down. Date of costume about 1848. He was smoking a cigar, and +trying to think of a word, and in pawing his hair he had rumpled his +locks a good deal. He was scowling fearfully, and I judged that he was +concocting a particularly knotty editorial. He told me to take the +exchanges and skim through them and write up the "Spirit of the Tennessee +Press," condensing into the article all of their contents that seemed of +interest.</p> + +<p>I wrote as follows:</p> +<br><br> + <center><h3>SPIRIT OF THE TENNESSEE PRESS</h3></center> + +<blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><blockquote> +<br> The editors of the Semi-Weekly Earthquake evidently labor under a + misapprehension with regard to the Ballyhack railroad. It is not + the object of the company to leave Buzzardville off to one side. + On the contrary, they consider it one of the most important points + along the line, and consequently can have no desire to slight it. + The gentlemen of the Earthquake will, of course, take pleasure in + making the correction. +<br> +<br> John W. Blossom, Esq., the able editor of the Higginsville + Thunderbolt and Battle Cry of Freedom, arrived in the city + yesterday. He is stopping at the Van Buren House. +<br><br> + We observe that our contemporary of the Mud Springs Morning Howl has + fallen into the error of supposing that the election of Van Werter + is not an established fact, but he will have discovered his mistake + before this reminder reaches him, no doubt. He was doubtless misled + by incomplete election returns. +<br><br> + It is pleasant to note that the city of Blathersville is endeavoring + to contract with some New York gentlemen to pave its well-nigh + impassable streets with the Nicholson pavement. The Daily Hurrah + urges the measure with ability, and seems confident of ultimate + success. +</blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>I passed my manuscript over to the chief editor for acceptance, +alteration, or destruction. He glanced at it and his face clouded. He +ran his eye down the pages, and his countenance grew portentous. It was +easy to see that something was wrong. Presently he sprang up and said:</p> + +<p>"Thunder and lightning! Do you suppose I am going to speak of those +cattle that way? Do you suppose my subscribers are going to stand such +gruel as that? Give me the pen!"</p> + +<p>I never saw a pen scrape and scratch its way so viciously, or plow +through another man's verbs and adjectives so relentlessly. While he was +in the midst of his work, somebody shot at him through the open window, +and marred the symmetry of my ear.</p> + +<p>"Ah," said he, "that is that scoundrel Smith, of the Moral Volcano—he +was due yesterday." And he snatched a navy revolver from his belt and +fired—Smith dropped, shot in the thigh. The shot spoiled Smith's aim, +who was just taking a second chance and he crippled a stranger. It was +me. Merely a finger shot off.</p> + +<p>Then the chief editor went on with his erasure; and interlineations. +Just as he finished them a hand grenade came down the stove-pipe, and the +explosion shivered the stove into a thousand fragments. However, it did +no further damage, except that a vagrant piece knocked a couple of my +teeth out.</p> + +<p>"That stove is utterly ruined," said the chief editor.</p> + +<p>I said I believed it was.</p> + +<p>"Well, no matter—don't want it this kind of weather. I know the man +that did it. I'll get him. Now, here is the way this stuff ought to be +written."</p> + +<p>I took the manuscript. It was scarred with erasures and interlineations +till its mother wouldn't have known it if it had had one. It now read as +follows:</p> +<br><br> + + <center><h3>SPIRIT OF THE TENNESSEE PRESS</h3></center> +<blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><blockquote> +<br> The inveterate liars of the Semi-Weekly Earthquake are evidently + endeavoring to palm off upon a noble and chivalrous people another + of their vile and brutal falsehoods with regard to that most + glorious conception of the nineteenth century, the Ballyhack + railroad. The idea that Buzzardville was to be left off at one side + originated in their own fulsome brains—or rather in the settlings + which they regard as brains. They had better swallow this lie if + they want to save their abandoned reptile carcasses the cowhiding + they so richly deserve. +<br><br> + That ass, Blossom, of the Higginsville Thunderbolt and Battle Cry of + Freedom, is down here again sponging at the Van Buren. +<br><br> + We observe that the besotted blackguard of the Mud Springs Morning + Howl is giving out, with his usual propensity for lying, that Van + Werter is not elected. The heaven-born mission of journalism is to + disseminate truth; to eradicate error; to educate, refine, and + elevate the tone of public morals and manners, and make all men more + gentle, more virtuous, more charitable, and in all ways better, and + holier, and happier; and yet this blackhearted scoundrel degrades + his great office persistently to the dissemination of falsehood, + calumny, vituperation, and vulgarity. +<br><br> + Blathersville wants a Nicholson pavement—it wants a jail and a + poorhouse more. The idea of a pavement in a one-horse town composed + of two gin-mills, a blacksmith shop, and that mustard-plaster of a + newspaper, the Daily Hurrah! The crawling insect, Buckner, who + edits the Hurrah, is braying about his business with his customary + imbecility, and imagining that he is talking sense. +</blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>"Now that is the way to write—peppery and to the point. Mush-and-milk +journalism gives me the fan-tods."</p> + +<p>About this time a brick came through the window with a splintering crash, +and gave me a considerable of a jolt in the back. I moved out of +range—I began to feel in the way.</p> + +<p>The chief said, "That was the Colonel, likely. I've been expecting him +for two days. He will be up now right away."</p> + +<p>He was correct. The Colonel appeared in the door a moment afterward with +a dragoon revolver in his hand.</p> + +<p>He said, "Sir, have I the honor of addressing the poltroon who edits this +mangy sheet?"</p> + +<p>"You have. Be seated, sir. Be careful of the chair, one of its legs is +gone. I believe I have the honor of addressing the putrid liar, Colonel +Blatherskite Tecumseh?"</p> + +<p>"Right, Sir. I have a little account to settle with you. If you are at +leisure we will begin."</p> + +<p>"I have an article on the 'Encouraging Progress of Moral and Intellectual +Development in America' to finish, but there is no hurry. Begin."</p> + +<p>Both pistols rang out their fierce clamor at the same instant. The chief +lost a lock of his hair, and the Colonel's bullet ended its career in the +fleshy part of my thigh. The Colonel's left shoulder was clipped a +little. They fired again. Both missed their men this time, but I got my +share, a shot in the arm. At the third fire both gentlemen were wounded +slightly, and I had a knuckle chipped. I then said, I believed I would +go out and take a walk, as this was a private matter, and I had a +delicacy about participating in it further. But both gentlemen begged me +to keep my seat, and assured me that I was not in the way.</p> + +<p>They then talked about the elections and the crops while they reloaded, +and I fell to tying up my wounds. But presently they opened fire again +with animation, and every shot took effect—but it is proper to remark +that five out of the six fell to my share. The sixth one mortally +wounded the Colonel, who remarked, with fine humor, that he would have to +say good morning now, as he had business uptown. He then inquired the +way to the undertaker's and left.</p> + +<p>The chief turned to me and said, "I am expecting company to dinner, and +shall have to get ready. It will be a favor to me if you will read proof +and attend to the customers."</p> + +<p>I winced a little at the idea of attending to the customers, but I was +too bewildered by the fusillade that was still ringing in my ears to +think of anything to say.</p> + +<p>He continued, "Jones will be here at three—cowhide him. Gillespie will +call earlier, perhaps—throw him out of the window. Ferguson will be +along about four—kill him. That is all for today, I believe. If you +have any odd time, you may write a blistering article on the police—give +the chief inspector rats. The cowhides are under the table; weapons in +the drawer—ammunition there in the corner—lint and bandages up there in +the pigeonholes. In case of accident, go to Lancet, the surgeon, +downstairs. He advertises—we take it out in trade."</p> + +<p>He was gone. I shuddered. At the end of the next three hours I had been +through perils so awful that all peace of mind and all cheerfulness were +gone from me. Gillespie had called and thrown me out of the window. +Jones arrived promptly, and when I got ready to do the cowhiding he took +the job off my hands. In an encounter with a stranger, not in the bill +of fare, I had lost my scalp. Another stranger, by the name of Thompson, +left me a mere wreck and ruin of chaotic rags. And at last, at bay in +the corner, and beset by an infuriated mob of editors, blacklegs, +politicians, and desperadoes, who raved and swore and flourished their +weapons about my head till the air shimmered with glancing flashes of +steel, I was in the act of resigning my berth on the paper when the chief +arrived, and with him a rabble of charmed and enthusiastic friends. Then +ensued a scene of riot and carnage such as no human pen, or steel one +either, could describe. People were shot, probed, dismembered, blown up, +thrown out of the window. There was a brief tornado of murky blasphemy, +with a confused and frantic war-dance glimmering through it, and then all +was over. In five minutes there was silence, and the gory chief and I +sat alone and surveyed the sanguinary ruin that strewed the floor around +us.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="p049.jpg (68K)" src="images/p049.jpg" height="527" width="650"> +</center><br><br><br><br> + +<p>He said, "You'll like this place when you get used to it."</p> + +<p>I said, "I'll have to get you to excuse me; I think maybe I might write +to suit you after a while; as soon as I had had some practice and learned +the language I am confident I could. But, to speak the plain truth, that +sort of energy of expression has its inconveniences, and a man is liable +to interruption.</p> + +<p>"You see that yourself. Vigorous writing is calculated to elevate the +public, no doubt, but then I do not like to attract so much attention as +it calls forth. I can't write with comfort when I am interrupted so much +as I have been to-day. I like this berth well enough, but I don't like +to be left here to wait on the customers. The experiences are novel, +I grant you, and entertaining, too, after a fashion, but they are not +judiciously distributed. A gentleman shoots at you through the window +and cripples me; a bombshell comes down the stove-pipe for your +gratification and sends the stove door down my throat; a friend drops in +to swap compliments with you, and freckles me with bullet-holes till my +skin won't hold my principles; you go to dinner, and Jones comes with his +cowhide, Gillespie throws me out of the window, Thompson tears all my +clothes off, and an entire stranger takes my scalp with the easy freedom +of an old acquaintance; and in less than five minutes all the blackguards +in the country arrive in their war-paint, and proceed to scare the rest +of me to death with their tomahawks. Take it altogether, I never had +such a spirited time in all my life as I have had to-day. No; I like +you, and I like your calm unruffled way of explaining things to the +customers, but you see I am not used to it. The Southern heart is too +impulsive; Southern hospitality is too lavish with the stranger. The +paragraphs which I have written to-day, and into whose cold sentences +your masterly hand has infused the fervent spirit of Tennesseean +journalism, will wake up another nest of hornets. All that mob of +editors will come—and they will come hungry, too, and want somebody for +breakfast. I shall have to bid you adieu. I decline to be present at +these festivities. I came South for my health, I will go back on the +same errand, and suddenly. Tennesseean journalism is too stirring for +me."</p> + +<p>After which we parted with mutual regret, and I took apartments at the +hospital.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="p050.jpg (64K)" src="images/p050.jpg" height="406" width="650"> +</center><br><br><br><br> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="badboy"></a>THE STORY OF THE BAD LITTLE BOY</h2></center> +<br> +<center><h3>[written about 1865]</h3></center> +<br> + +<center><img alt="p051.jpg (111K)" src="images/p051.jpg" height="872" width="650"> +</center><br><br><br><br> + +<p>Once there was a bad little boy whose name was Jim—though, if you will +notice, you will find that bad little boys are nearly always called James +in your Sunday-school books. It was strange, but still it was true, that +this one was called Jim.</p> + +<p>He didn't have any sick mother, either—a sick mother who was pious and +had the consumption, and would be glad to lie down in the grave and be at +rest but for the strong love she bore her boy, and the anxiety she felt +that the world might be harsh and cold toward him when she was gone. +Most bad boys in the Sunday books are named James, and have sick mothers, +who teach them to say, "Now, I lay me down," etc., and sing them to sleep +with sweet, plaintive voices, and then kiss them good night, and kneel +down by the bedside and weep. But it was different with this fellow. +He was named Jim, and there wasn't anything the matter with his +mother—no consumption, nor anything of that kind. She was rather stout than +otherwise, and she was not pious; moreover, she was not anxious on Jim's +account. She said if he were to break his neck it wouldn't be much loss. +She always spanked Jim to sleep, and she never kissed him good night; on +the contrary, she boxed his ears when she was ready to leave him.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="p052.jpg (27K)" src="images/p052.jpg" height="434" width="349"> +</center><br><br><br><br> + +<p>Once this little bad boy stole the key of the pantry, and slipped in +there and helped himself to some jam, and filled up the vessel with tar, +so that his mother would never know the difference; but all at once a +terrible feeling didn't come over him, and something didn't seem to +whisper to him, "Is it right to disobey my mother? Isn't it sinful to do +this? Where do bad little boys go who gobble up their good kind mother's +jam?" and then he didn't kneel down all alone and promise never to be +wicked any more, and rise up with a light, happy heart, and go and tell +his mother all about it, and beg her forgiveness, and be blessed by her +with tears of pride and thankfulness in her eyes. No; that is the way +with all other bad boys in the books; but it happened otherwise with this +Jim, strangely enough. He ate that jam, and said it was bully, in his +sinful, vulgar way; and he put in the tar, and said that was bully also, +and laughed, and observed "that the old woman would get up and snort" +when she found it out; and when she did find it out, he denied knowing +anything about it, and she whipped him severely, and he did the crying +himself. Everything about this boy was curious—everything turned out +differently with him from the way it does to the bad Jameses in the +books.</p> + +<p>Once he climbed up in Farmer Acorn's apple tree to steal apples, and the +limb didn't break, and he didn't fall and break his arm, and get torn by +the farmer's great dog, and then languish on a sickbed for weeks, and +repent and become good. Oh, no; he stole as many apples as he wanted and +came down all right; and he was all ready for the dog, too, and knocked +him endways with a brick when he came to tear him. It was very +strange—nothing like it ever happened in those mild little books with marbled +backs, and with pictures in them of men with swallow-tailed coats and +bell-crowned hats, and pantaloons that are short in the legs, and women +with the waists of their dresses under their arms, and no hoops on. +Nothing like it in any of the Sunday-school books.</p> + +<p>Once he stole the teacher's penknife, and, when he was afraid it would be +found out and he would get whipped, he slipped it into George Wilson's +cap—poor Widow Wilson's son, the moral boy, the good little boy of the +village, who always obeyed his mother, and never told an untruth, and was +fond of his lessons, and infatuated with Sunday-school. And when the +knife dropped from the cap, and poor George hung his head and blushed, +as if in conscious guilt, and the grieved teacher charged the theft upon +him, and was just in the very act of bringing the switch down upon his +trembling shoulders, a white-haired, improbable justice of the peace did +not suddenly appear in their midst, and strike an attitude and say, +"Spare this noble boy—there stands the cowering culprit! I was passing +the school door at recess, and, unseen myself, I saw the theft +committed!" And then Jim didn't get whaled, and the venerable justice +didn't read the tearful school a homily, and take George by the hand and +say such a boy deserved to be exalted, and then tell him to come and make his +home with him, and sweep out the office, and make fires, and run errands, +and chop wood, and study law, and help his wife do household labors, and +have all the balance of the time to play, and get forty cents a month, and +be happy. No; it would have happened that way in the books, but didn't +happen that way to Jim. No meddling old clam of a justice dropped in to +make trouble, and so the model boy George got thrashed, and Jim was glad +of it because, you know, Jim hated moral boys. Jim said he was "down on +them milksops." Such was the coarse language of this bad, neglected boy.</p> + +<p>But the strangest thing that ever happened to Jim was the time he went +boating on Sunday, and didn't get drowned, and that other time that he +got caught out in the storm when he was fishing on Sunday, and didn't get +struck by lightning. Why, you might look, and look, all through the +Sunday-school books from now till next Christmas, and you would never +come across anything like this. Oh, no; you would find that all the bad +boys who go boating on Sunday invariably get drowned; and all the bad +boys who get caught out in storms when they are fishing on Sunday +infallibly get struck by lightning. Boats with bad boys in them always +upset on Sunday, and it always storms when bad boys go fishing on the +Sabbath. How this Jim ever escaped is a mystery to me.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="p054.jpg (27K)" src="images/p054.jpg" height="429" width="343"> +</center><br><br><br><br> + +<p>This Jim bore a charmed life—that must have been the way of it. Nothing +could hurt him. He even gave the elephant in the menagerie a plug of +tobacco, and the elephant didn't knock the top of his head off with his +trunk. He browsed around the cupboard after essence-of peppermint, and +didn't make a mistake and drink aqua fortis. He stole his father's gun +and went hunting on the Sabbath, and didn't shoot three or four of his +fingers off. He struck his little sister on the temple with his fist +when he was angry, and she didn't linger in pain through long summer +days, and die with sweet words of forgiveness upon her lips that +redoubled the anguish of his breaking heart. No; she got over it. He +ran off and went to sea at last, and didn't come back and find himself +sad and alone in the world, his loved ones sleeping in the quiet +churchyard, and the vine-embowered home of his boyhood tumbled down and +gone to decay. Ah, no; he came home as drunk as a piper, and got into +the station-house the first thing.</p> + +<p>And he grew up and married, and raised a large family, and brained them +all with an ax one night, and got wealthy by all manner of cheating and +rascality; and now he is the infernalest wickedest scoundrel in his +native village, and is universally respected, and belongs to the +legislature.</p> + +<p>So you see there never was a bad James in the Sunday-school books that +had such a streak of luck as this sinful Jim with the charmed life.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="p055.jpg (25K)" src="images/p055.jpg" height="421" width="339"> +</center><br><br><br><br> + + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="goodboy"></a>THE STORY OF THE GOOD LITTLE BOY</h2></center> +<br> +<center><h3>[Written about 1865]</h3></center> +<br> + +<center><img alt="p056.jpg (100K)" src="images/p056.jpg" height="880" width="650"> +</center><br><br><br><br> + +<p>Once there was a good little boy by the name of Jacob Blivens. He always +obeyed his parents, no matter how absurd and unreasonable their demands +were; and he always learned his book, and never was late at +Sabbath-school. He would not play hookey, even when his sober judgment told him +it was the most profitable thing he could do. None of the other boys +could ever make that boy out, he acted so strangely. He wouldn't lie, no +matter how convenient it was. He just said it was wrong to lie, and that +was sufficient for him. And he was so honest that he was simply +ridiculous. The curious ways that that Jacob had, surpassed everything. +He wouldn't play marbles on Sunday, he wouldn't rob birds' nests, he +wouldn't give hot pennies to organ-grinders' monkeys; he didn't seem to +take any interest in any kind of rational amusement. So the other boys +used to try to reason it out and come to an understanding of him, but +they couldn't arrive at any satisfactory conclusion. As I said before, +they could only figure out a sort of vague idea that he was "afflicted," +and so they took him under their protection, and never allowed any harm +to come to him.</p> + +<p>This good little boy read all the Sunday-school books; they were his +greatest delight. This was the whole secret of it. He believed in the +good little boys they put in the Sunday-school books; he had every +confidence in them. He longed to come across one of them alive once; +but he never did. They all died before his time, maybe. Whenever he +read about a particularly good one he turned over quickly to the end to +see what became of him, because he wanted to travel thousands of miles +and gaze on him; but it wasn't any use; that good little boy always died +in the last chapter, and there was a picture of the funeral, with all his +relations and the Sunday-school children standing around the grave in +pantaloons that were too short, and bonnets that were too large, and +everybody crying into handkerchiefs that had as much as a yard and a half +of stuff in them. He was always headed off in this way. He never could +see one of those good little boys on account of his always dying in the +last chapter.</p> + +<p>Jacob had a noble ambition to be put in a Sunday school book. He wanted +to be put in, with pictures representing him gloriously declining to lie +to his mother, and her weeping for joy about it; and pictures +representing him standing on the doorstep giving a penny to a poor +beggar-woman with six children, and telling her to spend it freely, but +not to be extravagant, because extravagance is a sin; and pictures of him +magnanimously refusing to tell on the bad boy who always lay in wait for +him around the corner as he came from school, and welted him over the +head with a lath, and then chased him home, saying, "Hi! hi!" as he +proceeded. That was the ambition of young Jacob Blivens. He wished to +be put in a Sunday-school book. It made him feel a little uncomfortable +sometimes when he reflected that the good little boys always died. He +loved to live, you know, and this was the most unpleasant feature about +being a Sunday-school-book boy. He knew it was not healthy to be good. +He knew it was more fatal than consumption to be so supernaturally good +as the boys in the books were he knew that none of them had ever been +able to stand it long, and it pained him to think that if they put him in +a book he wouldn't ever see it, or even if they did get the book out +before he died it wouldn't be popular without any picture of his funeral +in the back part of it. It couldn't be much of a Sunday-school book that +couldn't tell about the advice he gave to the community when he was +dying. So at last, of course, he had to make up his mind to do the best +he could under the circumstances—to live right, and hang on as long as +he could, and have his dying speech all ready when his time came.</p> + +<p>But somehow nothing ever went right with the good little boy; nothing +ever turned out with him the way it turned out with the good little boys +in the books. They always had a good time, and the bad boys had the +broken legs; but in his case there was a screw loose somewhere, and it +all happened just the other way. When he found Jim Blake stealing +apples, and went under the tree to read to him about the bad little boy +who fell out of a neighbor's apple tree and broke his arm, Jim fell out +of the tree, too, but he fell on him and broke his arm, and Jim wasn't +hurt at all. Jacob couldn't understand that. There wasn't anything in +the books like it.</p> + +<p>And once, when some bad boys pushed a blind man over in the mud, and +Jacob ran to help him up and receive his blessing, the blind man did not +give him any blessing at all, but whacked him over the head with his +stick and said he would like to catch him shoving him again, and then +pretending to help him up. This was not in accordance with any of the +books. Jacob looked them all over to see.</p> + + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="p058.jpg (34K)" src="images/p058.jpg" height="439" width="341"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>One thing that Jacob wanted to do was to find a lame dog that hadn't any +place to stay, and was hungry and persecuted, and bring him home and pet +him and have that dog's imperishable gratitude. And at last he found one +and was happy; and he brought him home and fed him, but when he was going +to pet him the dog flew at him and tore all the clothes off him except +those that were in front, and made a spectacle of him that was +astonishing. He examined authorities, but he could not understand the +matter. It was of the same breed of dogs that was in the books, but it +acted very differently. Whatever this boy did he got into trouble. The +very things the boys in the books got rewarded for turned out to be about +the most unprofitable things he could invest in.</p> + +<p>Once, when he was on his way to Sunday-school, he saw some bad boys +starting off pleasuring in a sailboat. He was filled with consternation, +because he knew from his reading that boys who went sailing on Sunday +invariably got drowned. So he ran out on a raft to warn them, but a log +turned with him and slid him into the river. A man got him out pretty +soon, and the doctor pumped the water out of him, and gave him a fresh +start with his bellows, but he caught cold and lay sick abed nine weeks. +But the most unaccountable thing about it was that the bad boys in the +boat had a good time all day, and then reached home alive and well in the +most surprising manner. Jacob Blivens said there was nothing like these +things in the books. He was perfectly dumfounded.</p> + +<p>When he got well he was a little discouraged, but he resolved to keep on +trying anyhow. He knew that so far his experiences wouldn't do to go in +a book, but he hadn't yet reached the allotted term of life for good +little boys, and he hoped to be able to make a record yet if he could +hold on till his time was fully up. If everything else failed he had his +dying speech to fall back on.</p> + +<p>He examined his authorities, and found that it was now time for him to go +to sea as a cabin-boy. He called on a ship-captain and made his +application, and when the captain asked for his recommendations he +proudly drew out a tract and pointed to the word, "To Jacob Blivens, from +his affectionate teacher." But the captain was a coarse, vulgar man, and +he said, "Oh, that be blowed! that wasn't any proof that he knew how to +wash dishes or handle a slush-bucket, and he guessed he didn't want him." +This was altogether the most extraordinary thing that ever happened to +Jacob in all his life. A compliment from a teacher, on a tract, had +never failed to move the tenderest emotions of ship-captains, and open +the way to all offices of honor and profit in their gift—it never had in +any book that ever he had read. He could hardly believe his senses.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="p060.jpg (27K)" src="images/p060.jpg" height="441" width="350"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>This boy always had a hard time of it. Nothing ever came out according +to the authorities with him. At last, one day, when he was around +hunting up bad little boys to admonish, he found a lot of them in the old +iron-foundry fixing up a little joke on fourteen or fifteen dogs, which +they had tied together in long procession, and were going to ornament +with empty nitroglycerin cans made fast to their tails. Jacob's heart +was touched. He sat down on one of those cans (for he never minded +grease when duty was before him), and he took hold of the foremost dog by +the collar, and turned his reproving eye upon wicked Tom Jones. But just +at that moment Alderman McWelter, full of wrath, stepped in. All the bad +boys ran away, but Jacob Blivens rose in conscious innocence and began +one of those stately little Sunday-school-book speeches which always +commence with "Oh, sir!" in dead opposition to the fact that no boy, good +or bad, ever starts a remark with "Oh, sir." But the alderman never +waited to hear the rest. He took Jacob Blivens by the ear and turned him +around, and hit him a whack in the rear with the flat of his hand; and in +an instant that good little boy shot out through the roof and soared away +toward the sun, with the fragments of those fifteen dogs stringing after +him like the tail of a kite. And there wasn't a sign of that alderman or +that old iron-foundry left on the face of the earth; and, as for young +Jacob Blivens, he never got a chance to make his last dying speech after +all his trouble fixing it up, unless he made it to the birds; because, +although the bulk of him came down all right in a tree-top in an +adjoining county, the rest of him was apportioned around among four +townships, and so they had to hold five inquests on him to find out +whether he was dead or not, and how it occurred. You never saw a boy +scattered so.—[This glycerin catastrophe is borrowed from a floating +newspaper item, whose author's name I would give if I knew it.—M. T.]</p> + +<p>Thus perished the good little boy who did the best he could, but didn't +come out according to the books. Every boy who ever did as he did +prospered except him. His case is truly remarkable. It will probably +never be accounted for.</p> + + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="poems"></a>A COUPLE OF POEMS BY TWAIN AND MOORE</h2></center> +<br> +<center><h3>[written about 1865]</h3></center> +<br> +<br> +<center><h3>THOSE EVENING BELLS</h3></center> +<br> + +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> + + + <center><p>BY THOMAS MOORE</p></center> + + +<br> + Those evening bells! those evening bells!<br> + How many a tale their music tells<br> + Of youth, and home, and that sweet time<br> + When last I heard their soothing chime.<br> +<br> + Those joyous hours are passed away;<br> + And many a heart that then was gay,<br> + Within the tomb now darkly dwells,<br> + And hears no more those evening bells.<br> +<br> + And so 'twill be when I am gone<br> + That tuneful peal will still ring on;<br> + While other bards shall walk these dells,<br> + And sing your praise, sweet evening bells.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br><br> + <center><h3> THOSE ANNUAL BILLS</h3><br> +<br> +<p> BY MARK TWAIN</p></center><br> +<br> +<br> + These annual bills! these annual bills!<br> + How many a song their discord trills<br> + Of "truck" consumed, enjoyed, forgot,<br> + Since I was skinned by last year's lot!<br> +<br> + Those joyous beans are passed away;<br> + Those onions blithe, O where are they?<br> + Once loved, lost, mourned—now vexing ILLS<br> + Your shades troop back in annual bills!<br> +<br> + And so 'twill be when I'm aground<br> + These yearly duns will still go round,<br> + While other bards, with frantic quills,<br> + Shall damn and damn these annual bills!<br> + + +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> + + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="niagara"></a>NIAGARA</h2></center> + +<br> +<center><h3>[written about 1871]</h3></center> +<br> + +<center><img alt="p063.jpg (103K)" src="images/p063.jpg" height="898" width="650"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>Niagara Falls is a most enjoyable place of resort. The hotels are +excellent, and the prices not at all exorbitant. The opportunities for +fishing are not surpassed in the country; in fact, they are not even +equaled elsewhere. Because, in other localities, certain places in the +streams are much better than others; but at Niagara one place is just as +good as another, for the reason that the fish do not bite anywhere, and +so there is no use in your walking five miles to fish, when you can +depend on being just as unsuccessful nearer home. The advantages of this +state of things have never heretofore been properly placed before the +public.</p> + +<p>The weather is cool in summer, and the walks and drives are all pleasant +and none of them fatiguing. When you start out to "do" the Falls you +first drive down about a mile, and pay a small sum for the privilege of +looking down from a precipice into the narrowest part of the Niagara +River. A railway "cut" through a hill would be as comely if it had the +angry river tumbling and foaming through its bottom. You can descend a +staircase here a hundred and fifty feet down, and stand at the edge of +the water. After you have done it, you will wonder why you did it; but +you will then be too late.</p> + +<p>The guide will explain to you, in his blood-curdling way, how he saw the +little steamer, Maid of the Mist, descend the fearful rapids—how first +one paddle-box was out of sight behind the raging billows and then the +other, and at what point it was that her smokestack toppled overboard, +and where her planking began to break and part asunder—and how she did +finally live through the trip, after accomplishing the incredible feat of +traveling seventeen miles in six minutes, or six miles in seventeen +minutes, I have really forgotten which. But it was very extraordinary, +anyhow. It is worth the price of admission to hear the guide tell the +story nine times in succession to different parties, and never miss a +word or alter a sentence or a gesture.</p> + +<p>Then you drive over to Suspension Bridge, and divide your misery between +the chances of smashing down two hundred feet into the river below, and +the chances of having the railway-train overhead smashing down onto you. +Either possibility is discomforting taken by itself, but, mixed together, +they amount in the aggregate to positive unhappiness.</p> + +<p>On the Canada side you drive along the chasm between long ranks of +photographers standing guard behind their cameras, ready to make an +ostentatious frontispiece of you and your decaying ambulance, and your +solemn crate with a hide on it, which you are expected to regard in the +light of a horse, and a diminished and unimportant background of sublime +Niagara; and a great many people have the incredible effrontery or the +native depravity to aid and abet this sort of crime.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="p065.jpg (48K)" src="images/p065.jpg" height="356" width="650"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>Any day, in the hands of these photographers, you may see stately +pictures of papa and mamma, Johnny and Bub and Sis, or a couple of country +cousins, all smiling vacantly, and all disposed in studied and +uncomfortable attitudes in their carriage, and all looming up in their +awe-inspiring imbecility before the snubbed and diminished presentment of +that majestic presence whose ministering spirits are the rainbows, whose +voice is the thunder, whose awful front is veiled in clouds, who was +monarch here dead and forgotten ages before this sackful of small +reptiles was deemed temporarily necessary to fill a crack in the world's +unnoted myriads, and will still be monarch here ages and decades of ages +after they shall have gathered themselves to their blood-relations, the +other worms, and been mingled with the unremembering dust.</p> + +<p>There is no actual harm in making Niagara a background whereon to display +one's marvelous insignificance in a good strong light, but it requires a +sort of superhuman self-complacency to enable one to do it.</p> + +<p>When you have examined the stupendous Horseshoe Fall till you are +satisfied you cannot improve on it, you return to America by the new +Suspension Bridge, and follow up the bank to where they exhibit the Cave +of the Winds.</p> + +<p>Here I followed instructions, and divested myself of all my clothing, and +put on a waterproof jacket and overalls. This costume is picturesque, +but not beautiful. A guide, similarly dressed, led the way down a flight +of winding stairs, which wound and wound, and still kept on winding long +after the thing ceased to be a novelty, and then terminated long before +it had begun to be a pleasure. We were then well down under the +precipice, but still considerably above the level of the river.</p> + +<p>We now began to creep along flimsy bridges of a single plank, our persons +shielded from destruction by a crazy wooden railing, to which I clung +with both hands—not because I was afraid, but because I wanted to. +Presently the descent became steeper and the bridge flimsier, and sprays +from the American Fall began to rain down on us in fast increasing sheets +that soon became blinding, and after that our progress was mostly in the +nature of groping. Now a a furious wind began to rush out from behind the +waterfall, which seemed determined to sweep us from the bridge, and +scatter us on the rocks and among the torrents below. I remarked that I +wanted to go home; but it was too late. We were almost under the +monstrous wall of water thundering down from above, and speech was in +vain in the midst of such a pitiless crash of sound.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="p066.jpg (48K)" src="images/p066.jpg" height="887" width="279"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>In another moment the guide disappeared behind the deluge, and, bewildered +by the thunder, driven helplessly by the wind, and smitten by the arrowy +tempest of rain, I followed. All was darkness. Such a mad storming, +roaring, and bellowing of warring wind and water never crazed my ears +before. I bent my head, and seemed to receive the Atlantic on my back. +The world seemed going to destruction. I could not see anything, the +flood poured down savagely. I raised my head, with open mouth, and the +most of the American cataract went down my throat. If I had sprung a +leak now I had been lost. And at this moment I discovered that the +bridge had ceased, and we must trust for a foothold to the slippery and +precipitous rocks. I never was so scared before and survived it. But we +got through at last, and emerged into the open day, where we could stand +in front of the laced and frothy and seething world of descending water, +and look at it. When I saw how much of it there was, and how fearfully +in earnest it was, I was sorry I had gone behind it.</p> + +<p>The noble Red Man has always been a friend and darling of mine. I love +to read about him in tales and legends and romances. I love to read of +his inspired sagacity, and his love of the wild free life of mountain and +forest, and his general nobility of character, and his stately +metaphorical manner of speech, and his chivalrous love for the dusky +maiden, and the picturesque pomp of his dress and accoutrements. +Especially the picturesque pomp of his dress and accoutrements. When I +found the shops at Niagara Falls full of dainty Indian beadwork, and +stunning moccasins, and equally stunning toy figures representing human +beings who carried their weapons in holes bored through their arms and +bodies, and had feet shaped like a pie, I was filled with emotion. +I knew that now, at last, I was going to come face to face with the noble +Red Man.</p> + +<p>A lady clerk in a shop told me, indeed, that all her grand array of +curiosities were made by the Indians, and that they were plenty about the +Falls, and that they were friendly, and it would not be dangerous to +speak to them. And sure enough, as I approached the bridge leading over +to Luna Island, I came upon a noble Son of the Forest sitting under a +tree, diligently at work on a bead reticule. He wore a slouch hat and +brogans, and had a short black pipe in his mouth. Thus does the baneful +contact with our effeminate civilization dilute the picturesque pomp +which is so natural to the Indian when far removed from us in his native +haunts. I addressed the relic as follows:</p> + +<p>"Is the Wawhoo-Wang-Wang of the Whack-a-Whack happy? Does the great +Speckled Thunder sigh for the war-path, or is his heart contented with +dreaming of the dusky maiden, the Pride of the Forest? Does the mighty +Sachem yearn to drink the blood of his enemies, or is he satisfied to +make bead reticules for the pappooses of the paleface? Speak, sublime +relic of bygone grandeur—venerable ruin, speak!"</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="p068.jpg (49K)" src="images/p068.jpg" height="585" width="511"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>The relic said:</p> + +<p>"An' is it mesilf, Dennis Hooligan, that ye'd be takin' for a dirty +Injin, ye drawlin', lantern-jawed, spider-legged divil! By the piper +that played before Moses, I'll ate ye!"</p> + +<p>I went away from there.</p> + +<p>By and by, in the neighborhood of the Terrapin Tower, I came upon a +gentle daughter of the aborigines in fringed and beaded buckskin +moccasins and leggins, seated on a bench with her pretty wares about her. +She had just carved out a wooden chief that had a strong family +resemblance to a clothes-pin, and was now boring a hole through his +abdomen to put his bow through. I hesitated a moment, and then addressed +her:</p> + +<p>"Is the heart of the forest maiden heavy? Is the Laughing Tadpole +lonely? Does she mourn over the extinguished council-fires of her race, +and the vanished glory of her ancestors? Or does her sad spirit wander +afar toward the hunting-grounds whither her brave +Gobbler-of-the-Lightnings is gone? Why is my daughter silent? Has she ought against +the paleface stranger?"</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="p069.jpg (27K)" src="images/p069.jpg" height="428" width="339"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>The maiden said:</p> + +<p>"Faix, an' is it Biddy Malone ye dare to be callin' names? Lave this, or +I'll shy your lean carcass over the cataract, ye sniveling blaggard!"</p> + +<p>I adjourned from there also.</p> + +<p>"Confound these Indians!" I said. "They told me they were tame; but, if +appearances go for anything, I should say they were all on the warpath."</p> + +<p>I made one more attempt to fraternize with them, and only one. I came +upon a camp of them gathered in the shade of a great tree, making wampum +and moccasins, and addressed them in the language of friendship:</p> + +<p>"Noble Red Men, Braves, Grand Sachems, War Chiefs, Squaws, and High +Muck-a-Mucks, the paleface from the land of the setting sun greets you! You, +Beneficent Polecat—you, Devourer of Mountains—you, Roaring +Thundergust—you, Bully Boy with a Glass eye—the paleface from beyond the great +waters greets you all! War and pestilence have thinned your ranks and +destroyed your once proud nation. Poker and seven-up, and a vain modern +expense for soap, unknown to your glorious ancestors, have depleted your +purses. Appropriating, in your simplicity, the property of others has +gotten you into trouble. Misrepresenting facts, in your simple +innocence, has damaged your reputation with the soulless usurper. +Trading for forty-rod whisky, to enable you to get drunk and happy and +tomahawk your families, has played the everlasting mischief with the +picturesque pomp of your dress, and here you are, in the broad light of +the nineteenth century, gotten up like the ragtag and bobtail of the +purlieus of New York. For shame! Remember your ancestors! Recall their +mighty deeds! Remember Uncas!—and Red jacket! and Hole in the +Day!—and Whoopdedoodledo! Emulate their achievements! Unfurl yourselves +under my banner, noble savages, illustrious guttersnipes—"</p> + +<p>"Down wid him!" "Scoop the blaggard!" "Burn him!" "Hang him!" +"Dhround him!"</p> + +<p>It was the quickest operation that ever was. I simply saw a sudden flash +in the air of clubs, brickbats, fists, bead-baskets, and moccasins—a +single flash, and they all appeared to hit me at once, and no two of them +in the same place. In the next instant the entire tribe was upon me. +They tore half the clothes off me; they broke my arms and legs; they gave +me a thump that dented the top of my head till it would hold coffee like +a saucer; and, to crown their disgraceful proceedings and add insult to +injury, they threw me over the Niagara Falls, and I got wet.</p> + +<p>About ninety or a hundred feet from the top, the remains of my vest +caught on a projecting rock, and I was almost drowned before I could get +loose. I finally fell, and brought up in a world of white foam at the +foot of the Fall, whose celled and bubbly masses towered-up several +inches above my head. Of course I got into the eddy. I sailed round and +round in it forty-four times—chasing a chip and gaining on it—each +round trip a half-mile—reaching for the same bush on the bank forty-four +times, and just exactly missing it by a hair's-breadth every time.</p> + +<p>At last a man walked down and sat down close to that bush, and put a pipe +in his mouth, and lit a match, and followed me with one eye and kept the +other on the match, while he sheltered it in his hands from the wind. +Presently a puff of wind blew it out. The next time I swept around he +said:</p> + +<p>"Got a match?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; in my other vest. Help me out, please."</p> + +<p>"Not for Joe."</p> + +<p>When I came round again, I said:</p> + +<p>"Excuse the seemingly impertinent curiosity of a drowning man, but will +you explain this singular conduct of yours?"</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="p071.jpg (40K)" src="images/p071.jpg" height="435" width="349"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>"With pleasure. I am the coroner. Don't hurry on my account. I can +wait for you. But I wish I had a match."</p> + +<p>I said: "Take my place, and I'll go and get you one."</p> + +<p>He declined. This lack of confidence on his part created a coldness +between us, and from that time forward I avoided him. It was my idea, +in case anything happened to me, to so time the occurrence as to throw my +custom into the hands of the opposition coroner on the American side.</p> + +<p>At last a policeman came along, and arrested me for disturbing the peace +by yelling at people on shore for help. The judge fined me, but I had the +advantage of him. My money was with my pantaloons, and my pantaloons +were with the Indians.</p> + +<p>Thus I escaped. I am now lying in a very critical condition. At least I +am lying anyway—-critical or not critical. I am hurt all over, but I +cannot tell the full extent yet, because the doctor is not done taking +inventory. He will make out my manifest this evening. However, thus far +he thinks only sixteen of my wounds are fatal. I don't mind the others.</p> + +<p>Upon regaining my right mind, I said:</p> + +<p>"It is an awful savage tribe of Indians that do the beadwork and +moccasins for Niagara Falls, doctor. Where are they from?"</p> + +<p>"Limerick, my son."</p> + + + +<br><br> + + +<center> +<table summary="" cellPadding=4 border=3> +<tr><td> + <a href="p2.htm">Next Part</a> +</td><td> + <a href="3189-h.htm">Main Index</a> + + +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> + +</body> +</html> + |