Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

the other side; and if he couldn't, he'd change sides. Any way that suited the other man would suit him, -any way just so's he got a bet, he was satisfied. But still he was lucky, uncommon lucky: he 'most always come out winner. He was always ready and laying for a chance; there couldn't be no solit'ry thing mentioned but that feller'd offer to bet on it, and take any side you please, as I was just telling you. If there was a horse race, you'd find him flush or you'd find him busted at the end of it; if there was a dog fight, he'd bet on it; if there was a cat fight, he'd bet on it; if there was a chicken fight, he'd bet on it; why, if there was two birds sitting on a fence, he would bet you which one would fly first; or if there was a camp meeting, he would be there reg'lar, to bet on Parson Walker, which he judged to be the best exhorter about here, and so he was, too, and a good man. 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. Lots of the boys here has seen that Smiley and can tell you about him. Why, it never made no difference to him, he would bet on anything, - the dangdest feller. 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 Siniley, before he thought, says, "Well, I'll risk two-and-a-half that she don't, anyway."

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

This yer Smiley had a mare, -the boys called her the fifteen-minute nag, but that was only in fun, you know, because, of course, she was faster than that, and he used to win money on that horse, for all she was so slow and always had the asthma, or the distemper, or the consumption, or something of that kind. They used to give her 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 cipher it down.

And he had a little small bull pup, that to look at him you'd think he wa'n't worth a cent but to set around and look ornery and lay for a chance to steal something. But as soon as the money was up on him, he was a different dog; his underjaw'd begin to stick out like the fo'castle of a steamboat, and his teeth would uncover, and shine savage like the furnaces. And a dog might tackle him, and bullirag him, and bite him, and throw him over his shoulder two or three times, and Andrew Jackson - which was the name of the pup - Andrew Jackson would never let on but what he was satisfied and hadn't expected nothing else, and the bets being doubled and doubled on the other side all the time, till the money was all up; and then all of a sudden he would grab that other dog jest by the j'int of his hind leg and freeze to it,-not chaw, you understand, but only jest grip and hang on till they throwed up the sponge, if it was a year. Smiley always come out winner on that pup, till he harnessed a dog once that didn't have no hind legs, because they'd been sawed off by a circular saw; and when the thing had gone along far enough, and the money was all up, and he come to make a snatch for his pet holt, he saw in a minute how he'd been imposed on, and how the other dog had him in the door, so to speak, and he 'peared surprised, and then he looked sorter discouraged like, and didn't try no more to win the fight, and so he got shucked out bad. He give Smiley a look, as much as to say his heart was broke, and it was his fault, for putting up a dog that hadn't no hind legs for him to take holt of, which was his main dependence in a fight, and then he limped off a piece and laid down and died. It was a good pup, was that Andrew Jackson, and would have made a name for hisself if he'd lived, for the stuff was in him, and he had genius: I know it, because he hadn't had no opportunities to speak of, and it don't stand to reason that a dog could make such a fight as he could under them circumstances, if he hadn't no talent. It always makes me feel sorry when I think of that last fight of his'n, and the way it turned out.

Well, this yer Smiley had rat terriers, and chicken cocks, and tomcats, and all them kind of things, till you couldn't rest, and you couldn't fetch nothing for him to bet on but he'd match you. He ketched a frog one day, and took him home, and said he calc'lated to edercate him; and so he never

done nothing for three months but set in his back yard and learn that frog to jump. And you bet you he did learn him, too. He'd give him a little punch behind, and the next minute you'd see that frog whirling in the air like a doughnut, see him turn one summerset, or maybe a couple, if he got a good start, and come down flat-footed and all right, like a cat. He got him up so in the matter of catching flies, and kept him in practice so constant, that he'd nail a fly every time as far as he could see him. Smiley said all a frog wanted was education, and he could do 'most anything; and I believe him. 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. And when it come to fair and square jumping on a dead level, he could get over more ground at one straddle than any animal of his breed you ever see. Jumping on a dead level was his strong suit, you understand; and when it come to that, Smiley would ante up money on him as long as he had a red. Smiley was monstrous proud of his frog and well he might be, for fellers that had traveled and been everywheres, all said he laid over any frog that ever they see.

Well, Smiley kept the beast in a little lattice box, and he used to fetch him down town 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:

[ocr errors]

"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.'

[ocr errors]

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?"

66

Well," Smiley says, easy and careless, "he's good enough for one thing, I should judge: he can outjump ary 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.”

[ocr errors]

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 prized 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 new frog hopped off, but Dan'l gave a heave, and h'isted up his shoulders, so, like a Frenchman, but it wa'n'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 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."

Smiley he stood scratching his head and looking down at Dan'l a long time, and at last he says: "I do wonder what in the nation that frog throw'd off for. I wonder if there ain't something the matter with him: he 'pears to look mighty

baggy, somehow." And he ketched Dan'l by the nape 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. And

(Here Simon Wheeler heard his name called from the front yard, and got up to see what was wanted.) And, turning to me as he moved away, he said, "Just set where you are, stranger, and rest easy; I ain't going to be gone a second."

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 buttonholed me and recommenced :

"Well, this yer Smiley had a yaller one-eyed cow that didn't have no tail, only just a short stump like a bannanner, and

[ocr errors]

"Oh, hang Smiley and his afflicted cow!" I muttered good-naturedly; and, bidding the old gentleman good day, I departed.

THE V-A-S-E.

BY JAMES JEFFREY ROCHE.

[JAMES JEFFREY ROCHE: An Irish-American author; born in Queen's County, Ireland, May 31, 1847. He was educated at St. Dunstan's College, Prince Edward Island, and in 1883 joined the staff of the Boston Pilot, of which he is now editor. His works include: "Songs and Satires" (1887), "Life of John Boyle O'Reilly" (1891),"Story of the Filibusters" (1891), "Ballads of Blue Water" (1895).]

[blocks in formation]
« VorigeDoorgaan »