The Celebrated Jumping Frog

Mark Twain, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, 1865

Another short story by Mark Twain, this work is told from the perspective of a narrator retelling a bartenders story. The story could be considered a somewhat whimsical tale of a gambler Jim Smiley. The bartender simply tells the story to the narrator without any actual connection to the reason for the narrator interviewing him. Ultimately this unconnected story has a potential follow up that is short lived as the narrator comes to realize the bartender has no idea of the individual in question.

But, by your leave, I did not think that a continuation of the history of the enterprising vagabond Jim Smiley would be likely to afford me much information concerning the Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, and so I started away.

At the door I met the sociable Wheeler returning and he button-holed me and recommenced:

“Well, thish-year Smiley had a yeller one-eyed cow that didn’t have no tail, only jest a short stump like a bannanner, and”

The whole story is almost framed as a prank by the narrators friend who insists asking Simon Wheeler, the bartender, about Leonidas W. Smiley would illicit grand stories.

I have a lurking suspicion that Leonidas W. Smiley is a myth; that my friend never knew such a personage; and that he only conjectured that, if I asked old Wheeler about him, it would remind him of his infamous Jim Smiley, and he would go to work and bore me nearly to death with some infernal reminiscence of him as long and tedious as it should be useless to me. If that was the design, it certainly succeeded.

The story that does follow is humorous and the tale of Jim Smiley and his frog while perhaps useless and boring to the narrator is entertaining to the reader. Wheeler starts by describing Jim and his gambling ways suggesting if he could bet on anything he would and if no one else would take the bet he would take the position to get the other person involved.

The frog named Dan’l Webster was picked from a swamp and Jim trained him for three months simply to be good at jumping. This section was entertaining to see Wheeler move into a tangent on the importance of educating and training a frog.

Smiley said all a frog wanted was education, and he could do most any thing and I believe him.

Apparently there was a market for betting on frogs ability to jump because Dan’l Webster attracted an audience and defeated any frog that he was placed against. That was until a stranger came to town.

Of course Jim wants a bet and having Dan’l who cannot lose makes a bet and even offers to get the stranger a frog of his own simply to have the competition. However, in leaving to get a frog the stranger weighs down Dan’l and unaware, Jim starts the competiton and Dan’l hardly moves. This turn of events is funny in Wheeler’s retelling as the stranger walks away with the money before Jim can figure out he was cheated.

And the feller took it, and looked at it careful, and turned it round this way and that, and says, “H’m so ’tis. Well, what’s he good for?”‘
“Well,” Smiley says, easy and careless, “He’s good enough for one thing, I should judge he can outjump any frog in Calaveras county.”

Following the conclusion of this story Wheeler is called by an anonymous source and the narrator takes the opportunity to leave but not before Wheeler calls to him, teasing another fanciful and crazy Jim Smiley story.

This is a fun and whimsical short story by Twain that ultimately led him onto bigger and better tales. I enjoyed reading the tale and the context adds to the humor, I would personally enjoy hearing another Wheeler anecdote about Jim’s yellow, one eyed cow with no tail!