Chapter 16

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, anyway, he 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. 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 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 boys here has seen that Smiley, and can tell you about him. Why, it never made no difference to _him_--he would bet on _any_ thing--the dangest 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 Smiley, before he thought, says, "Well, I'll risk 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, 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.

And he had a little small bull-pup, that to look at him you'd think he wan'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 upon him, he was a different dog; his under-jaw'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 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 saw'd 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 gave 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, thish-yer Smiley had rat-tarriers, and chicken-cocks, and tom-cats, 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 cal'klated 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 came 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 mor'n any frog might do. You never see a frog so modest and straightfor'ard as he was, for all he was so gifted. An' 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 travelled and been everywhere, 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:

"What might it be that you've got in that 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."

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?"

"Well," Smiley says, easy and careless, "he's good enough for _one_ thing, I should judge--he can outjump any frog in Calaveras county."

The feller took the box again, and took another long, particular look, and gave 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 amateur, 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 studies 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."

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 the 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 gave him to this feller, and says:

"Now, if you're ready, set him alongside of Dan'l, with his forepaws 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 give a heave, and hysted up his shoulders--so--like a Frenchman, but it wan'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 throwed 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 nap of his neck, and lifted him up and says, "Why, blame my cats, if he don't weigh five pounds!" 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 social Wheeler returning, and he buttonholed me and recommenced:

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

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

THE CHARMING FRENCHMAN

BOSSUET [Sidenote: _Sainte-Beuve_]

As for the happiness itself, of which he would give us a just idea, the purely spiritual and internal happiness of the soul in the other life, he sums it up in an expression which concludes a happy development of the subject, and he defines it: _Reason always attentive and always contented_. Take reason in its liveliest and most luminous sense, the pure flame disengaged from the senses.

ROUSSEAU [Sidenote: _Sainte-Beuve_]

It is from him that the sentiment of nature is reckoned among us, in the eighteenth century. It is from him also that is dated, in our literature, _the sentiment of domestic life; of that homely, poor, quiet, hidden life, in which are accumulated so many treasures of virtue and affection_. Amid certain details, in bad taste, in which he speaks of robbery and of eatables, how one pardons him on account of that old song of childhood, of which he knows only the air and some words stitched together, but which he always wished to recover, and which he never recalls, old as he is, without a soothing charm!

JOUBERT [Sidenote: _Sainte-Beuve_]

Taste, for him, is the literary conscience of the soul....

M. Joubert was, in his day, the most delicate and the most original type of that class of honest people which the old society alone produced,--spectators, listeners who had neither ambition nor envy, who were curious, at leisure, attentive, and disinterested, who took an interest in everything, the true amateurs of beautiful things. "To converse and to know--it was in this, above all things, that consisted, according to Plato, the happiness of private life." This class of connoisseurs and of amateurs, so fitted to enlighten and to restrain talent, has almost disappeared in France since every one there has followed a profession. "We should always," said M. Joubert, "have a corner of the head open and free, that we may have a place for the opinions of our friends, where we may lodge them provisionally. It is really insupportable to converse with men who have, in their brains, only compartments which are wholly occupied, and into which nothing external can enter. Let us have _hospitable hearts and minds_."

* * * * *

Life is a duty; we must make a pleasure of it, so far as we can, as of all other duties. If the care of cherishing it is the only one with which it pleases Heaven to charge us, we must acquit ourselves gaily and with the best possible grace, and poke that sacred fire, while warming ourselves by it all we can, till the word comes to us: That will do.

MME D'HOUDETOT [Sidenote: _Sainte-Beuve_]

In the years to which we refer--that is, the years immediately preceding 1800--there were gathered in the salon of this charming old lady the remnants both of fashionable and philosophical society--never, indeed, entirely exiled thence. It may be said of Mme d'Houdetot that her ideal existence was always bounded by that Montmorency valley where the ardent devotion of Jean Jacques has engraved her memory, as it were, in immortal characters. There, again and again, her idyllic spring-time renewed its bloom, and the freshness of her impressions continued unimpaired until her dying day. She even remained in the country during the Reign of Terror, her retreat being respected, and her relatives flocking about her; and "I can readily believe," writes Mme de Rémusat, in a charming portrait of her venerable friend, "that she retains, of those frightful days, merely the memory of the increased tenderness and consideration which they procured for her."

MME DE RÉMUSAT [Sidenote: _Sainte-Beuve_]

O mothers, gather your children about you early. Dare to say, when they come into the world, that your youth is passing into theirs. O mothers, be mothers, and you will be wise and happy!

DIDEROT [Sidenote: _Sainte-Beuve_]

If the _Encyclopedia_ was in Diderot's time considered his principal social work, his principal glory in the eyes of the men of to-day consists in his having been the first to create the emotional and eloquent style of criticism. It is through this that he has become immortal, through this that he will be for ever dear to us journalists of every sort and condition. Let us bow down to him as our father, and as the founder of this style of criticism.

Before Diderot's time, the French style of criticism had been, firstly, as offered by Bayle, of a precise, inquiring, and subtle tone. Fénelon represented criticism as an elegant and delicate art, while Rollin exhibited its most useful and honest side. From a due sense of decency, I refrain from mentioning the names of Fréron and Des Fontaines. But nowhere yet had criticism acquired anything like vividness, fertility, and penetration; it had not yet found its soul. Diderot was the first to find it. Naturally inclined to look over defects, and to admire good qualities, "I am more affected," he remarked, "by the charms of virtue than the deformity of vice; I quietly turn away from the wicked and _fly forward to meet the good_. If there happens to be a beautiful spot in a book, a character, a picture, or a statue, it is there that I let my eyes rest; I can only see this beautiful spot, I can only remember it, while the rest I nearly forget. What do I become when everything is beautiful!" This inclination to welcome everything with enthusiasm--this sort of universal admiration--undoubtedly had its danger. It is said of him that he was singularly happy "in never having encountered a wicked man nor a bad book." For, even if the book were bad, he would unconsciously impute to the author some of his own ideas. Like the alchemist, he found gold in the melting-pot, from the fact he had placed it there himself. However, it is to him that all honour is due for having introduced among us the fertile criticism of _beauties_, which he substituted for that of _defects_. Châteaubriand himself, in that portion of the _Genius of Christianity_ in which he eloquently discourses on literary criticism, only follows the path opened by Diderot....

"A pleasure that I enjoy alone affects me but slightly, and is of short duration. It is for my friends as well as myself that I read, that I reflect, that I write, that I meditate, that I listen, that I look, that I feel. In their absence I am still devoted to them; I am continually thinking of their happiness. If I am struck with a beautiful line, they must know it. If I meet with a fine passage, I promise myself to impart it to them. If I have before my eyes some enchanting spectacle, I unconsciously plan a description of it for their benefit. I have consecrated to them the use of all my senses and faculties; and it is perhaps for this reason that everything becomes somewhat enriched in my imagination and exaggerated in my discourse. Nevertheless, the ungrateful creatures sometimes reproach me."

LA BRUYÈRE [Sidenote: _Sainte-Beuve_]

That philosopher, always accessible, even in the deepest studies, who tells you to come in, for you bring him something more precious than gold or silver, _if it is the opportunity of obliging you._

SABBATH BELLS [Sidenote: _Anon._]

Ding--ding-a-ding! Ding--ding-a-ding! The church bells they du ring, Ding--ding-a-ding! Ding--ding-a-ding! An' seems they bells du zing: "O merry be! O merry be! The work it all be done, Zee, peas and brocoli du graw Tremenjus in the zun; An' hot it is, an' calm it is, Bees buzz an' cattle doze; Zo, laze about, an' talk about, All in your Zunday clo's." _Ding--ding-a-ding_! Ding--ding-a-ding_!

Ding--ding-a-ding! Ding--ding-a-ding! The church bells merry ring, Ding--ding-a-ding! Ding--ding-a-ding! An,' dang it! doan't they zing?-- "O rest awhile! O rest awhile! Vor 'tis amazin' sweet To watch the white-heart cabbages All bustin' in the heat; Zo, zit about, an' stand about, Beside ov Early Rose, An' puff a pipe, an' think ov things, All in your Zunday clo's." _Ding--ding-a-ding_! Ding--ding-a-ding_!

Dong! Dong! Dong! There's a shadow on the marn, Dong! Dong! Dong! The one larst bell du warn: "O fulish mun! O fulish mun! Life be no more than grass, It glitters in the shinin' zun-- Until the Reaper pass! An', hark! I call 'ee up to prayer, Wi' passen, clerk, an' schule, Come up along, an' take thee seat Thou ole pig-headed fule!"

_Dong_! _Dong_! _Dong_!

UNCLE TOBY AND THE FLY [Sidenote: _Sterne_]

My uncle _Toby_ was a man patient of injuries;--not from want of courage,--I have told you in a former chapter, "that he was a man of courage":--And will add here, that where just occasions presented, or called it forth,--know no man under whose arm I would have sooner taken shelter;--nor did this arise from any insensibility or obtuseness of his intellectual parts;--for he felt this insult of my father's as feelingly as a man could do;--but he was of a peaceful, placid nature,--no jarring element in it,--all was mixed up so kindly within him; my uncle _Toby_ had scarce a heart to retaliate upon a fly.

--Go--says he, one day at dinner, to an over-grown one which had buzzed about his nose, and tormented him cruelly all dinner-time,--and which, after infinite attempts, he had caught at last, as it flew by him;--I'll not hurt thee, says my uncle _Toby_, rising from his chair, and going across the room, with the fly in his hand,--I'll not hurt a hair of thy head;--Go, says he, lifting up the sash, and opening his hand as he spoke, to let it escape;--go, poor devil, get thee gone, why should I hurt thee?--This world surely is wide enough to hold both thee and me.

I was but ten years old when this happened: but whether it was, that the action itself was more in unison to my nerves at that age of pity, which instantly set my whole frame into one vibration of most pleasurable sensation;--or how far the manner and expression of it might go towards it;--or, in what degree, or by what secret magick,--a tone of voice and harmony of movement, attuned by mercy, might find a passage to my heart, I know not;--this I know, that the lesson of universal good-will then taught and imprinted by my uncle _Toby_ has never since been worn out of my mind: And tho' I would not depreciate what the study of the _Literæ humaniores,_ at the University, have done for me in that respect, or discredit the other helps of an expensive education bestowed upon me, both at home and abroad since;--yet I often think that I owe one half of my philanthropy to that one accidental expression.

HOBSON'S CHOICE [Sidenote: _William Hazlitt_]

One of the pleasantest things in the world is going a journey; but I like to go by myself. I can enjoy society in a room; but, out of doors, nature is company enough for me. I am then never less alone than when alone.

The fields his study, nature was his book.

I cannot see the wit of walking and talking at the same time. When I am in the country I wish to vegetate like the country. I am not for criticising hedge-rows and black cattle. I go out of town in order to forget the town and all that is in it. There are those who for this purpose go to watering-places, and carry the metropolis with them. I like more elbow-room and fewer encumbrances. I like solitude, when I give myself up to it, for the sake of solitude; nor do I ask for

A friend in my retreat, Whom I may whisper, Solitude is sweet.

The soul of a journey is liberty, perfect liberty to think, feel, do, just as one pleases. We go a journey chiefly to be free of all impediments and of all inconveniences; to leave ourselves behind much more to get rid of others. It is because I want a little breathing-space to muse on indifferent matters, where Contemplation--

May plume her feathers and let grow her wings, That in the various bustle of resort Were all too ruffled, and sometimes impair'd--