The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County

“I found Simon Wheeler dozing comfortably by the bar-room stove of the old, dilapidated tavern in the ancient 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.”

The Narrator describes a man whose appearance suggests he is just an average small-town yokel and not the clever verbal fabulist he turns out to be. Like a predator lurking in a corner, he seems benign at first, almost invisible. This quote exemplifies Twain’s satirizing of elitist attitudes toward rural Americans.

“[I]f Mr. Wheeler could tell me anything about this Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, I would feel under many obligations to him. Simon Wheeler backed me into a corner and blockaded me there with his chair, and then sat me down and reeled off the monotonous narrative which follows this paragraph.”

Wheeler sees his chance to indulge in his favorite pastime, spinning yarns. The Narrator does not yet realize this, even if already he feels awkward with Simon blocking his exit. Still hoping the elderly bartender might possess information useful to his quest, the Narrator attends politely, about to be bamboozled by a veteran storyteller. In this respect, the author also corners the reader.

“He never smiled, he never frowned, he never changed his voice from the gentle-flowing key to which he tuned the initial sentence, he never betrayed the slightest suspicion of enthusiasm; but all through the interminable narrative there ran a vein of impressive earnestness and sincerity […].”

Wheeler delivers his story with great, if monotonous, sincerity. In fact, he is lulling the Narrator with a hypnotic voice that utters the most ridiculous balderdash as if it were gospel.

“To me, the spectacle of a man drifting serenely along through such a queer yarn without ever smiling, was exquisitely absurd.”

Wheeler delivers his strange story with the boldness of someone telling the truth, a hallmark of tall tales. The Narrator finds Wheeler amusingly odd; what the Narrator does not realize is that Wheeler is enjoying himself immensely and reveling in his literally captive audience.

“There was a feller here once by the name of Jim Smiley, in the winter of ‘49—or may be it was the spring of ‘50—I don’t recollect exactly, somehow, though what makes me think it was one or the other is because I remember the big flume wasn’t finished when he first came to the camp […].”

Wheeler also argues with himself about the exact date of his acquaintance with Jim Smiley, which gives the story a further air of reality. Additionally, his uncertainty emphasizes the humorously roundabout way he tells the deceptively simple and ultimately irrelevant story.

“[H]e was the curiosest 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. Anyway that suited the other man would suit him—anyway just so’s he got a bet, he was satisfied. But still he was lucky, uncommon lucky; he most always come out winner.”

Simon Wheeler characterizes Jim Smiley for both the Narrator and the reader. Whether Smiley’s success with gambling is more due to luck or skill will become a key point of contention in his tale.

“If he even seen a straddle-bug start to go anywheres, he would bet you how long it would take him to get wherever he was going to, and if you took him up, he would foller that straddle-bug to Mexico but what he would find out where he was bound for and how long he was on the road.”

Much as Wheeler elaborates his yarn, giving it lots of detail to add to its realism, Twain uses Wheeler’s vernacular speech to add authenticity to the story. The clever reader will by now have realized that the tale works on two levels, Wheeler’s made-up sincerity and the Narrator’s careful description of a supposedly real event. While Wheeler cons the Narrator, might also be conning the reader.

“Parson Walker’s wife laid very sick once, for a good while, and it seemed as if they warn’t going to save her; but one morning he come in, and Smiley asked how she was, and he said she was considerable better—thank the Lord for his inf’nit mercy—and coming on so smart that, with the blessing of Prov’dence, she’d get well yet; and Smiley, before he thought, says, ‘Well, I’ll risk two-and-a-half that she don’t, anyway.’”

One of the funniest moments in the story, this passage serves as its own joke, with an elaborate build-up about the parson’s agonies and relief over his deathly sick wife, followed by a punch line in which Smiley impulsively bets the parson that his spouse will expire anyway. Wheeler mentions this incident as evidence of Smiley’s overwhelming obsession with gambling—he’s so driven to make wagers that the habit gets him into embarrassing social situations—and this prepares the listener to believe the absurdities that are about to follow.

“They used to give [the old mare] two or three hundred yards’ start, and then pass her under way; but always at the fag-end of the race she’d get excited and desperate-like, and come cavorting and straddling up, and scattering her legs around limber, sometimes in the air, and sometimes out to one side amongst the fences, and kicking up m-o-r-e dust and raising m-o-r-e racket with her coughing and sneezing and blowing her nose—and always fetch up at the stand just about a neck ahead, as near as you could cypher it down.”

This passage amply demonstrates Twain’s genius with words. The horse’s desperate flailing, while it somehow manages to win a race, is portrayed in a manner both vivid and hilarious. At the same time, it makes inspired use of Wheeler’s vernacular speech, which contains colorfully descriptive powers unavailable in standard English dialects.

“Why, I’ve seen him set Dan’l Webster down here on this floor—Dan’l Webster was the name of the frog—and sing out, ‘Flies, Dan’l, flies!’ and quicker’n you could wink, he’d spring straight up, and snake a fly off’n the counter there, and flop down on the floor again as solid as a gob of mud, and fall to scratching the side of his head with his hind foot as indifferent as if he hadn’t no idea he’d been doin’ any more’n any frog might do. You never see a frog so modest and straightfor’ard as he was, for all he was so gifted.”

In yet another colorfully descriptive scene, Twain captures the image of a frog leaping. Wheeler anthropomorphizes the frog, as if it were aware of the lure of human pride but disdainful of it. These details add to the yarn’s realism and, at the same time, clue the listener in to Wheeler’s own subtle storytelling gifts.

“Maybe you understand frogs, and maybe you don’t understand ‘em; maybe you’ve had experience, and maybe you an’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.”

Smiley plies his wagering trade with what he believes to be expert technique. He suggests first that the visitor might not know much about the subject of frog jumping, a comment meant to tweak the Stranger’s pride and make him want to bet. Smiley next suggests that he has reason to believe his pet frog can win, but he does not elaborate, which leaves the visitor to wonder at the possibilities; finally, Smiley asserts that his frog can beat any frog in the county, an audacious claim designed to appeal to the Stranger’s competitiveness. Ironically, Smiley does not realize that the Stranger has his own plans.

“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—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.’”

The Stranger, having fooled Smiley by secretly feeding pouring quail to Dan’l Webster, delivers his sarcastic final comment, which echoes his first observation word for word. This gives the reader notice that the Stranger intended all along to outwit Smiley. It is also a signal that the reader is in Smiley’s position, unaware of being outwitted by the author.

“‘I do wonder what in the nation that frog throw’d off for—I wonder if there an’t something the matter with him—he ‘pears to look mighty baggy, somehow.’ And he ketched Dan’l by the nap of the neck, and lifted him up and says, ‘Why, blame my cats, if he don’t weigh five pound!’ and turned him upside down, and he belched out a double handful of shot. And then he see how it was, and he was the maddest man—he set the frog down and took out after that feller, but he never ketched him.”

By the time the gambler realizes he’s been cheated, it’s too late, and his money is long gone. This scene completes the story of Jim Smiley’s jumping frog; Smiley has been beaten at his own game.