The Wyandot pioneer. (Upper Sandusky, Ohio) 1853-1868, 1868-11-26

TIE Celebrated Jumping Frog
Of CaIayeras County.
BY mark TWAIN.

In compliance with the request Of
a friend of mine, who wrote me
from the East, called on good ma
tured. garrulous old Simon Wheeler
and inquired after my friends friend,
Leouid0s w. Smiley, as requested
to do, and l heret,nto append the re-
suit. have lurking suspicion
that LeouiIns w. Smiley is myth
that my friend never knew such
parsonage, and lie only conjectured
that, if | asked Old Wheeler about
him, it would remind him Of his in
famous Jim Smiley, and he wouls!
go to work and bore me nearly to
death with some dire reminiscence
of him as long and tedious IS it
should be useless to me. If that
was the design it certainly succeed
ed.
l found Simon Wheeler doing
comfortably by the bar-room stove
of the old. .delapidated tavern in the
ancient mining camp of Angels,
and I noticed that be was fat and
bald headed, and had an expression
Of wining gentleness and simplicity
upon his tranquil countenance. He
reused up and gave me good-day. I
told him a friend of mine had com
missioned me to make some inqui-
ries about cherished companion
of his boyhood named Leonidas w.
Smiley-Rcv. Leonidas ". Smiley
"a young minister ofthe Gospel,
who he had heard was at one time
a resident of Angels camp. I ad-
ded that, il Mr.. Wheeler could tell
me anything about this Rev. Leoni-
das W. Smiley, would feel under
many obligations to him.
Simon Wheeler backed me into
corner and biockaded me there
with his chair. and then sat me down
and reeled off the monotonous nara
tive which follows this paragraph
He never smiled, he never frowned.
he never changed his voice from the
gentle flowing key to which he tuned
the initial sentence, he never betray-
ed the slitest shadow of enthusiasm
bnt ali through the interminabie mar
ative there ran q veio of impressive
earnestness and sincerity, which
showed me plainly that, so far from
his imagining that there was any
thing ridiculous Or funny about his
story, he regarded it as really i'm
portant matter, and admired it's two
heroes as men ftrancendant genius
in fnesse. To me the spectacle of
a man drifting along through such
q queer yarn without ever smiling,
was exqusitely absurd. AS / said
before, / asked him to tell me what
he knew of Rev. Leonidas W. Smi-
ley, AID he replied as follows. l
let him go on his own way and new
er interrupted him once:
There was a feller here once bv
the name of Jim Smiley, in the win
ter of 49-or may be it was in the
spring of '50--I don't recollect ex-
actly. somehow, though what makes
me think it was one or the other is
because l remember the big fume
was mt finished when he first come
to the camp; but any way, he was
the curiosest man about always bet
ting on any thing that turned up you
ever see if he could get any body to
bet on the other side; and if he
couldn't he'd change sides. Any
way that suited the other man suit
ed hin-any way just so he got a
bet he was satisfied. But still he
was lucky he most alwayswas win
ner. He was always ready and lay
ing for a chance: there could Mt be no
solitary thing mentioned but that
feller'd bet on it, and take ary side
you please, as | was just telleng you.
II there was a horse race, you'd find
him flushed or you'd find busted
at The end OF it; if there was chick
en- fight, he'd bet on it; why, if there