P. S.- Old man Harris wanted to buy my fiddle the other day with Confederit money. He sed it would be good agin. He says Jim Funderbuk told him that Warren's Jack seen a man who had jest come from Virginny, and he said a man had told his cousin Mandy that Lee had whipped 'em agin. Old Harris says that a feller by the name of Mack C. Million is coming over with a million of men. 10 But nevertheless, notwithstandin, somehow, or somehow else, I'm dubus about the money. If you was me, Artemus, would you make the fiddle trade?

From Bill Arp, So Called, 1866.

DAVID ROSS LOCKE,
"PETROLEUM V. NASBY,"
(1833-1888)

PREACHES - SUBJECT: 'THE
PRODIGAL SON'

away his pile, returns, you kill calves and sich.' Then the old man retorts, sayin, 'My son who wuz lost is found; the sheep who went astray is cum back; let us be 5 merry.'

My brethren, this parable applize ez well to the present time ez though it wuz made for it. Uncle Samyuel is the old man, the Suthern wing uv the Dimekratik party is the proddygal, and the Abolishnists is the oldest son. The South got tired, and went off on its own hook. It hez, I maik no doubt, spent the heft uv its substance, and will shortly conclude 15 to cum home. Now, the grate question uv the hour is - How shel he be reseeved? My frends, the Dimekratik roo! is to foller the scripter wen yoo can make a pint by so doin. In this pertikeler case, 20 godlinis is gane. Halleloogy! therefour, let us be godly. Let Uncle Samyuel see the repentant proddygal afar_orf - let him go out to seek him, er send Fernandywood, and when he haz found him, let him 25 fall, not upon his neck, but at his feetlet him put on to him the purple robe, wich is royalty, and upon his hand a ring, wich is dominion, wich is a improvement upon Scripter.

Church uv the Noo Dispensashun, January the 31st, 1864. MY BRETHREN AND SISTEREN: I shall maik sum remarks this mornin based upon the bootiful Parable of the Proddygal 30 Sun. I wood reed 2 yoo the passij, but the Bible I hev is the only wun in the township, and I lent it yisterday 2 Square Gavitt, who sed swarin witnesses on almanacs woodent do in hoss cases, and he 35 upon such harlots as Afrikin Slaivry, hase n't brung it back. The skripter sez, in substance:

Ther was a certin man who hed 2 suns. The yungist hed a taist for that branch of agricultooral persoots known ez soowin 40 wild oats, so he askt the old man for his sheer in the estait. He got it, turnd it into greenbax, and went off. He commenst livin high-bording at big hotels, and keepin trottin hosses, and playin bil-45 yards, and sich. In about a year he run thro his pile, and wuz ded broak. Then his credit playd out, and he wuz in a tight place for his daily bred. The idee struck him that he had better put for hum, wich 50 he did. The old man saw him cumin, and he run out and met him, and giv him a new cote, and a order for a pare uv shoes, and kild a fat caff, and hed flour doins. The oldest boy obgected 2 these, sayin. 55 'Lo, I hev servd thee these menny yeres, and thou never madest no splurge over me, but when this thy son, who hez fooled

But the Abolishnist, who is the elder son, steps up and sez: Nary. He wuz a doin well, and he wented out frum us, takin awl that wuz his own, and sech ez he cood steel, all uv wich he hez spent

Stait Rites, and Suthern Independence, wich last two menshund is whited sepulkers. I sent my sons, Grant and Rosycrance, and Benbutler after him; but, lo! wen he wuz strong and wiggerus, he did despitefully use them. Now that he is week from hunger, let him brindle. Ef we take him to our buzems, let him cum on his knees; let him cast off the harlots that hev sedoost him, that ther may be no moar trubble in all the land.'

My brethren, we must taik him back ez the old man did in the Bible. Why? do you ask. Becoz he wuz alluz the old man's pet, and had things his own way. We wuz his frends, and shared with him the steelins, but sence we went out, the Abolishn brother and his frends hev controld things, and whare air we? Eko ansers, No whair! We okepy low plasis in the sinagog, and the doggery-keepers go mournin about the streets, and refuse to be comforted, becoz ther cash is not,

A collecshun wuz takin up for the per- 10

SAMUEL LANGHORNE CLEMENS (1835-1910)

Samuel L. Clemens, or "Mark Twain" as he is better known to readers, was the first literary man of high rank to be born west of the Mississippi. His father was a member of that restless horde who during the greater part of the nineteenth century pushed westward into the new lands of the Mississippi and beyond, their picturesque caravans and border settlements making romantic a whole era of our history. It was at Florida, Missouri, on the west bank of the great river, that he finally settled, and it was in the shiftless river town of Hannibal, made vivid to us by the adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, that the future humorist spent his boyhood. His schooling was meager. He found work early in the local printing office, learned his trade in due time, and at eighteen, longing for a glimpse of the world, he started on a tramp trip east, supporting himself as a typesettter as he went. Thus he saw New York and Philadelphia. Fifteen months later, he was back again, now as a "cub" on one of the river boats, and after eighteen months he realized the first great ambition of his life, he was a professional pilot on the Mississippi.

Suddenly, however, he found his profession useless. The war had broken out, and the river was closed. Out of employment, he went home, served for a time in an improvised troop which tried to join the Confederate army, and then, his brother Orion having been appointed secretary to the Governor of Nevada, he started with him by stage coach across the plains. The next period of his life reads like romance: he saw the beginnings of the picturesque new state, reported its first legislative sessions, joined the excited tide of gold-seekers which was moving ever into the mountains, lived for two years at Virginia City, the home of the Comstock lode at its highest boom period, drifted down to San Francisco and became acquainted with Bret Harte and his circle, was connected with the city papers and for them made at one time a trip to the Sandwich Islands, as they were then called, and at length drifted again into the Sierras as a pocket miner and adventurer.

The next period of his life began in 1867 when he went to New York to publish his first book, The Jumping Frog. While there he was attracted by a notice that The Quaker City was to start early in the summer with a personally conducted band of tourists for the Mediterranean lands. With a commission from The Alta California newspaper for letters, he joined it. The letters finally became Innocents Abroad, 1869, and from the date of its publication its author became a man of letters with a constantly increasing fame. He was married to Miss Olivia Langdon of Elmira, New York, lived in her home town for a time, then moved to Hartford, Connecticut, which he thenceforth made his home. He traveled much abroad, and after the failure of his publishing house which plunged him heavily in debt, made a prolonged lecture trip through all the English-speaking parts of the world, finally, like Sir Walter Scott, succeeding in clearing himself of all obligations.

His writings fall into three classes: books like Roughing It, Life on the Mississippi, Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, which may be termed studies in the romance of early American life; secondly, his purely humorous work, like The Jumping Frog and much of his earlier farce; and thirdly, his more serious work, like his Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, and his purpose stories like The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg. Of these the first are the most valuable. He has shown with rare faithfulness a picturesque area of American life that has passed away forever.

THE CELEBRATED JUMPING FROG
OF CALAVERAS COUNTY 1

In compliance with the request of a friend of mine, who wrote me from the East, I called on good-natured, garrulous

old Simon Wheeler, and inquired after my friend's friend, Leonidas W. Smiley, as requested to do, and I hereunto append the result. I have a lurking sus

spicion that Leonidas W. Smiley is a myth; that my friend never knew such a personage; and that he only conjectured that, if I asked old Wheeler about him, it would remind him of his infamous Jim Smiley, Twain Company and Harper & Brothers, Publishers 10 and he would go to work and bore me

1 Published by express permission of the Trustees of the Estate of Samuel L. Clemens, the Mark

nearly to death with some infernal reminiscence of him as long and tedious as it should be useless to me. If that was the design, it certainly succeeded.

I found Simon Wheeler dozing comfortably by the bar-room stove of the old, dilapidated tavern in the ancient mining camp of Angel's, and I noticed that he was fat and bald-headed, and had an expression of winning gentleness and to 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 15 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 Angel's Camp. I added that, if Mr. Wheeler could tell me any- 20 thing about this Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, I would feel under many obligations to him.

that turned up you ever see, if he could get any body to bet on the other side; and if he could n't, he'd change sides. Any way that suited the other man would 5 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 could n't be no solitary 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 campmeeting, he would be there reg'lar, to bet on Parson Walker, which he judged to be the best exhorter about there, and so he was, too, and a good man. If he even

Simon Wheeler backed me into a corner and blockaded me there with his chair, and 25 seen a straddle-bug start to go anywheres, 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 30 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 35 plainly that, so far from his imagining that there was anything ridiculous or funny about his story, he regarded it as a really important matter, and admired its two heroes as men of transcendent 40 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 asked him to tell me what he knew of 45 Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, and he replied as follows. I let him go on in his own way, and never interrupted him once:

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 follow 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 any thing - the dangdest feller. Parson Walker's wife laid very sick once, for a good while, and it seemed as if they war n'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-ahalf that she won't, any way.

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 10 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 money was up on him, he was a different dog; his under- 15 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 bullyrag him, and bite him, and throw him over 20 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 had n't expected nothing else - and the 25 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 30 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 did n't have no hind legs, be-35 cause 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 40 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 did n't try

as he could under them circumstances, if he had n't no talent. It always makes me feel sorry when I think of that last fight of his'n, and the way it turned 5 out.

Well, thish-yer Smiley had rat-tarriers, and chicken cocks, and tom-cats, and all them kind of things, till you could n't rest, and you could n'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 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 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, 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 had n'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

no more to win the fight, and so he got 45 you ever see. Jumping on a dead level

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 had n't no hind legs for him to take
holt of, which was his main dependence in 50
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 - 55
I know it, because he had n't had no op-
portunity to speak of, and it don't stand to
reason that a dog could make such a fight

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 come across him with his box, and

was
says: