The Jumping Frog --Cyberfiction

 

Alright, listen up, this here's the story of the Jumping Frog, as told by Mark Twain, but I'm gonna tell it to you the way I heard it down on the farm, kinda like a yarn ol' Jerry Clower might spin.

Now, this fella, see, he goes to this town and is lookin' for a fella by the name of Jim Smiley. Well, he finds this old timer named Simon Wheeler, and that's when the tale starts. Ol' Jim, he was the betting-est fella you ever did see. If he could get you to bet on somethin', he was happy as a pig in slop, and if he couldn't, well he'd switch sides just to get some action.

• If there were two birds sittin' on a fence, Jim would bet you which one would fly off first.
• If there was a camp meeting, he'd bet on Parson Walker, said he was the best exhorter around.
• If a straddle bug started walkin', Jim would bet on how long it'd take him to get wherever he was goin'. Why, he'd follow that bug all the way to Mexico just to win a bet!
• He had this old slow mare, and he’d give her a head start, and she'd come from behind at the last minute and win. She'd kick up so much dust, you couldn't hardly see!
• Then he had this bull-pup, looked mean as a snake, but he could whip any other dog when the money was down.

Now, Jim, he wasn’t satisfied with just animals, no sir. He catches a frog, and he starts tryin' to educate that thing. He taught it to jump real good, and to catch flies. He'd punch it from behind and that thing would go flyin', doin' summer-sets and landin' like a cat. He named that frog Dan'l Webster, and he was proud as a peacock of that frog. That frog would jump up, snatch a fly right off the counter, and come back down to the floor like a mud ball. Jim thought that with education a frog could do anything.

Well, one day a fella comes into town and asks Jim about his frog. Jim tells him that frog can out jump any frog in Calaveras County. The stranger says he don’t see nothin' special, but if he had a frog, he’d bet on it. Well, Jim says that’s fine and tells the stranger to hold his frog while he goes and gets the stranger one to bet against. The stranger takes Dan’l and fills him full of quail shot and sets him back on the floor.

When Jim gets back with another frog, they set them side-by-side, and on the count, both frogs get a little poke to make them jump. The stranger's frog takes off, but Dan’l didn’t budge. He was sittin' there like he was planted in concrete. The stranger, he took the money and headed on out the door and said he still didn't see anythin' special about that frog. Jim, he just stood there scratchin' his head, wonderin' what in the world had just happened. Why that frog didn't jump was a mystery to Jim.

The fella tellin' this story was gonna go on about some afflicted cow or somethin', but he said he was in a hurry and left.

So, there you have it, the Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, just like old Jerry Clower might have told it, with a little somethin' extra.