The Jumping Frog :: Creative Writing Short Stories War Essays

The Jumping Frog Now that brings me by a natural and easy transition to Simon Wheeler of California; a pioneer he was, and in a small way a philosopher. Simon Wheeler's creed was that pretty nearly everything that happens to a man can be turned to moral account; every incident in his life, almost, can be made to assist him, to project him forward morally, if he knows how to make use of the lesson which that episode teaches, and he used -- well, he was a good deal of a talker. He was an inordinate talker; in fact, he wore out three sets of false teeth, and I told about a friend of his one day -- a man that he had known there formerly, and who he had a great admiration for, of one Jim Smiley, and he said it was worth a man's while to know Jim Smiley. Jim Smiley was a man of gift; he was a man of parts; he was a man of learning; he was -- well, he was the curiousest man about always betting on anything that turned up that you ever see, if he could get anybody to bet on the other side, and if he couldn't he would change sides. As soon as he got a bet he was satisfied. He prepared himself with all sorts of things -- tomcats, rat terriers and all such things, and one day he ketched a frog; said he calculated to educate him. And he took him home and never done nothing but set in his back yard and learn that frog how to jump. Yes, sir, and he did learn him to -- he did learn him to. When it came to jumping on a dead level there wasn't no frog that could touch him at all. Come to jump on the dead level, why, he could lay over any frog in the profession, and Smiley broke all the camps around there betting on that frog. Bye and bye he got a misfortune. He used to keep his frog in a little lattice box. The frog's name was Daniel Webster, and he would bring that box down town and lay for a bet. And one day a fellow came along, a stranger in the camp he was, he says, "What might it be that you have got in the box?" "Well," Smiley says, "It ain't anything particular, it's only just a frog," " Well," he says, "What is he good for?