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THE CELEBRATED JUMPING FROG OF CALAVERAS COUNTY
byMark Twain
Well, Smiley kept the beast in a little lattice box, and he used to fetch him downtown sometimes and lay for a bet. One day a feller -- a stranger in the camp, he was -- come across him with his box, and says:
"What might it be that you've got in the box?"
And Smiley says, sorter indifferent like, "It might be a parrot, or it might be a canary, maybe, but it ain't -- it's only just a frog."
An' the feller took it, and looked at it careful, and turned it round this way and that, and says, "H'm -- so 'tis. Well, what's he good for?"
"Well," Smiley says, easy and careless, "He's good enough for one thing, I should judge -- he can outjump any frog in Calaveras county."
The feller took the box again, and took another long, particular look, and give it back to Smiley, and says, very deliberate, "Well, I don't see no p'ints about that frog that's any better'n any other frog."
"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 risk forty dollars that he can outjump any frog in Calaveras county."
And the feller studied a minute, and then says, kinder sad like, "Well, I'm only a stranger here, and I ain't got no frog; but if I had a frog, I'd bet you."
And then Smiley says, "That's all right -- that's all right -- if you'll hold my box a minute, I'll go and get you a frog." And so the feller took the box, and put up his forty dollars along with Smiley's, and set down to wait.
So he set there a good while thinking and thinking to hisself, and then he got the frog out and prizes his mouth open and took a teaspoon and filled him full of quail shot -- filled him pretty near up to his chin -- and set him on the floor. Smiley he went to the swamp and slopped around in the mud for a long time, and finally he ketched a frog, and fetched him in, and give him to this feller, and says:
"Now, if you're ready, set him alongside of Dan'l, with his fore-paws just even with Dan'l, and I'll give the word." Then he says, "One -- two -- three -- jump!" and him and the feller touched up the frogs from behind, and the frog hopped off, but Dan'l give a heave, and hysted up his shoulders -- so -- like a Frenchman, but it wasn't no use -- he couldn't budge; he was planted as solid as an anvil, and he couldn't no more stir than if he was anchored out. Smiley was a good deal surprised, and he was disgusted, too, but he didn't have no idea what the matter was, of course.
The feller took the money and started away; and when he was going out the door, he sorter jerked his thumb over his shoulder -- this way -- at Dan'l, and says again, very deliberate, "Well, I don't see no p'ints about that frog that's any better'n any other frog."
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(c) Rodenburg Films Ltd. 2008
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