馬克吐溫短片小說 01 Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog

Mr. A. Ward,

Dear Sir: -- Well, I called on good-natured, garrulous old Simon Wheeler, and inquired after your friend, Leonidas W. Smiley, as you requested me to do, and I hereunto append the result. If you can get any information out of it you are cordially welcome to it. I have a lurking suspicion that your Leonidas W. Smiley is a myth -- that you never knew such a personage, and that you only conjectured that if I asked old Wheeler about him it would remind him of his infamous Jim Smiley, and he would go to work and bore me nearly to death with some infernal reminiscence of him as long and tedious as it should be useless to me. If that was your design, Mr. Ward, it will gratify you to know that it succeeded.

I found Simon Wheeler dozing comfortably by the bar-room stove of the old, dilapidated tavern in the ancient mining camp of Boomerang, and I noticed that he was fat and bald-headed, and hadan expression of winning gentleness and simplicity upon his tranquil countenance. He roused up and gave me good-day. I told him a friend of mine had commissioned me to make some inquiries about a cherished companion of his boyhood named Leonidas W. Smiley -- Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley -- a young minister of the Gospel, who he had heard was at one time a resident of this village of Boomerang. I added that if Mr. Wheeler could tell me any thing 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. 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, 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 a really important matter, and admired its two
heroes as men of transcendent genius in finesse. To me, the
spectacle of a man drifting serenely along through such a queer yarn
without ever smiling was exquisitely absurd. As I said before, I askedhim to tell me what he knew of Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, and he
replied as follows. I let him go on in his own way, and never
interrupted him once:

There was a feller here once by the name of Jim Smiley, in the
winter of '49 -- or maybe 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; but any way, he was the curiosest man about
always betting 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 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 solitry 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 setting
on a fence, he would bet you which one would fly first -- or if there
was a camp-meeting, he would be there reglar, to bet on Parson
Walker, which he judged to be the best exhorter about here, and sohe was, too, and a good man. If he even seen a straddle-bug start to
go any wheres, 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 him 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
Providence, she'd get well yet -- and Smiley, before he thought,
says, "Well, I'll resk two-and-a-half that she don't, anyway."

Thish-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, andscattering 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
warn't worth a cent, but to set around and look ornery, and lay for a
chance to steal something. But as soon as 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 bully-rag
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 thronged 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 in
a circular saw, and when the thing had gone along far enough, andthe 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.