n I think of that last fight of
his'n, and the way it turned out.

Well, this-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 may
be 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 any thing--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 straight-for'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 travelled 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,

"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, may be, 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,