Life on Mississippi

Guide for Interpreting

Mark Twain (1835-1910)

Although Mark Twain is widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers,the world-renowned author once indicated that he would have preferred to spend his life as a famous Mississippi riverboat pilot.Though the comment was probably not entirely serious,Twain so loved life on the river that as a young man,he did in fact work as a riverboat pilot for several years. His childhood on the banks of the Mississippi fostered more than a love of reverboats—it also became the basis for many of his most famous works,including The Advertures of Tom Sawyer(1876) and The Adentures of Huckleberry Finn(1884).

Life on the River

Twain,whose real name is Samuel Langhorne Clemens,felt so closely tied to the Mississippi River that he even took his pen name,Mark Twain,from a river man's call meaning "two fathoms deep," indicating that the riveris deep enough for a boat to pass safely. He grew up in the Mississippi River town of Hannibal,Missouri.When he was eleven,his father died,and he left school to become a printer's apprentice.He worked as a printer in a number of different cities before deciding at age twenty-one to pursue a career as riverboat pilot.

A Traveling Man

When the Civil War closed traffic on the Mississippi,Twain went west to Nevada. There he worked as a journalist and lecturer,developing the entertaining writing style that made him famous.In 1865,when he published "The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," his version of a tall tale he heard in a mining camp,Twain became an international celebrity.

Following the publication of The Innocents Abroad(1869),a successful book of humorous travel letters,Twain moved to Hartford,Connecticut,where he was to make his home for the rest of his life.There he began using his past experiences as raw material for his books.He drew on his travels in the western mining region for Roughing It(1872) and turned his childhood experiences on the Mississippi into The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,Life on the Mississippi,and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.The latter title in particular so greatly influenced other writers that Ernest Hemingway praised it with these words.

"All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn."

Twain traveled widely throughout his career,and his adventures abroad were fuel for a number of books.After living in Europe for several years,he returned home with his family.Following the death of his wife and three of their four children,Twain's writing depicted an increasingly pessimistic view of society and human nature.his work,however,continued to display the same masterful command of language that had already established him as one of America's finest fiction writers.

Background for Understanding

HISTORY:TWAIN WITNESSES AMERICA'S WESTWARD EXPANSION

Twain was an eyewitness to the nineteenth-century expansion of the western frontier.He was a young man when wagon trains 1eft his home state to cross the prairies on the Oregon Trail,and he later saw the transcontinental railroad built.He traveled throughout the rapidly expanding nation,working first on the Mississippi,then in the West,before setting in Connecticut.The rich variety of people and places he observed are reflected in the setting,characters,and dialogue of his uniquely American literature.Twain was working as a gold prospector in California when he heard the story that became "The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County".

Literature and Your Life

CONNECT YOUR EXPERIENCE

Today,the world is changing rapidly through almost daily advancements in technology.During Mark Twain's day,America was also changing at a fast pace—although perhaps not as rapidly as today—as advances in transportation helped settlers venture across the ever-expanding frontier.As these stories illustrate,no writer better captured the flavor of life on the new frontier than Twain.

JOURNAL WRITING

Jot down your impressions Of American frontier life,and explain whether or not you think you would have thrived on the frontier.

THEMATIC FOCUS: FORGING NEW FRONTIERS

As you read,notice what the stories reveal about life on the developing frontier,and compare frontier life to the in today's world.

Literary Focus

HUMOR

"The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" has become a classic humorous tale.Humor is writing intended to evoke laughter.Humorists use a variety of techniques to make their work amusing.Many western humorists of the 1800's,including Mark Twain,exaggerate and embellish certain incidents and details to such an extent that they become comical.Often these incidents are related by a narrator or storyteller in a very serious tone.This tone makes the story even funnier by creating the impression that the storyteller is unaware of the ridiculousness of what he or she is describing.

Life on Mississippi

Mark Twain

The Boys' Ambition

When I was a boy,there was but one permanent ambition among my comrades in our village on the west bank of the Mississippi River.That was,to be a steam-boatman.We had transient ambitions of other sorts,but they were only transient.

When a circus came and went,it left us all burning to become clowns; the first negro minstrel show that came to our section left us all suffering to try that kind of life;now and then we had a hope that if we lived and were good,God would permit us to be pirates.These ambitions faded out,each in its turn; but the ambition to be a steam-boatman always remained.

Once a day a cheap,gaudy packet arrived upward from St.Louis,and another downward from Keokuk.Before these events,the day was glorious with expectancy;after them,the day was a dead and empty thing.Not only the boys,but the whole village,felt this.After all these years I can picture that old time to myself now,just as it was then: the white town drowsing in the sunshine of a summer's morning;the streets empty,or pretty nearly so; one or two clerks sitting in front of the Water Street stores,with their splint-bottomed chairs tilted back against the wall,chins on breasts,hats slouched over their faces,asleep—with shingle-shavings enough around to

show what broke them down; a sow and a litter of pigs loafing along the sidewalk,doing a good business in watermelon rinds and seeds; two or three lonely little freight piles scattered about the levee; a pile of skids on the slope of the stone-paved wharf,and the fragrant town drunkard asleep in the shadow of them; two or three wood flats at the head of the wharf,but nobody to listen to the peaceful lapping of the wavelets against them; the great Mississippi,the majestic,the magnificent Mississippi,rolling its mile-wide tide along,shining in the sun; the dense forest away on the other side; the point above the town,and the point below,bounding the river-glimpse and turning it into a sort of sea,and withal a very still and brilliant and lonely one.Presently a film of dark smoke appears above one of those remote points; instantly a negro drayman,famous for his quick eye and prodigious voice,lifts up the cry,"S-t-e-a-m-boat a-comin!" and the scene changes! The town drunkard stirs,the clerks wake up,a furious clatter of drays follows,every house and store pours out a human contribution,and all in a twinkling the dead town is alive and moving.Drays,carts,men,boys,all go hurrying from many quarters to a common center,the wharf.Assembled there,the people fasten their eyes upon the coming boat as upon a wonder they are seeing for the first time.And the boat is rather a handsome sight,too.She is long and sharp and trim and pretty; she has two tall,fancy-topped chimneys,with a gilded device of some kind swung between them;a fanciful pilot-house,all glass and gingerbread,perched on top of the texas deck behind them; the paddle-boxes are gorgeous with a picture or with gilded rays above the boat's name; the boiler deck,the hurricane deck,and the texas deck are fenced and ornamented with clean white railings; there is a flag gallantly flying from the jack-staff; the furnace doors are open and the fires glaring bravely; the upper decks are black with passengers; the captain stands by the big bell,calm,imposing,the envy of all;great volumes of the blackest smoke are rolling and tumbling out of the chimneys—a husbanded grandeur created with a bit of pitch pine just before arriving at a town; the crew are grouped on the forecastle; the broad stage is run far out over the port bow,and an envied deckhand stands picturesquely on the end of it with a coil of rope in his hand;the pent steam is screaming through the gauge-cocks,the captain lifts his hand,a bell rings,the wheels stop; then they turn back,churning the water to foam,and the steamer is at rest.Then such a scramble as there is to get aboard,and to get ashore,and to take in freight and to discharge freight,all at one and the same time; and such a yelling and cursing as the mates facilitate it all with! Ten minutes later the steamer is under way again,with no flag on the jack-staff and no black smoke issuing from the chimneys. After ten more minutes the town is dead again,and the town drunkard asleep by the skids once more.

My father was a justice of the peace,and I supposed he possessed the power of life and death over all men and could hang anybody that offended him.This was distinction enough for me as a general thing; but the desire to be a steam-boatman kept intruding,nevertheless.I first wanted to be a cabin-boy,so that I could come out with a white apron on and shake a tablecloth over the side,where all my old comrades could see me; later I thought I would rather be the deckhand who stood on the end of the stage-plank with the coil of rope in his hand,because he was particularly conspicuous. But these were only daydreams—they were too heavenly to be contemplated as real possibilities.By and by one of our boys went away.He was not heard of for a long time.At last he turned up as apprentice engineer or striker on a steamboat.This thing shook the bottom out of all my Sunday-school teachings.That boy had been notoriously worldly,and I just the reverse; yet he was exalted to this eminence,and I left in obscurity and misery.There was nothing generous about this fellow in his greatness.He would always manage to have a rusty bolt to scrub while his boat tarried at our town,and he would sit on the inside guard and scrub it,where we could all see him and envy him and loathe him.And whenever his boat was laid up he would come home and swell around the town in his blackest and greasiest clothes,so that nobody could help remembering that he was a steam-boatman; and he used all sorts of steamboat technicalities in his talk,as if he were so used to them that he forgot common people could not understand them.He would speak of the labboard side of a horse in an easy,natural way that would make one wish he was dead.And he was always talking about "St.Looey" like an old citizen; he would refer casually to occasions when he"was coming down Fourth Street," or when he was "passing by the Planter's House,"or when there was a fire and he took a turn on the brakes of "the old Big Missouri;"and then he would go on and lie about how many towns the size of ours were burned down there that day.Two or three of the boys had long been persons of consideration among us because they had been to St.Louis once and had a vague general knowledge of its wonders,but the day of their glory was over now.They lapsed into a humble silence,and learned to disappear when the ruthless cub-engineer approached.This fellow had money,too,and hair oil.Also an ignorant silver watch and a showy brass watch chain.He wore a leather belt and used no suspenders.If ever a youth was cordially admired and hated by his comrades,this one was.No girl could withstand his charms.He "cut out" every boy in the village.When his boat blew up at last,it diffused a tranquil contentment among us such as we had not known for months.But when he came home the next week,alive,renowned,and appeared in church all battered up and bandaged,a shining hero,stared at and wondered over by everybody,it seemed to us that the partiality of Providence for an undeserving reptile had reached a point where it was open to criticism.

This creature's career could produce but one result,and it speedily followed. Boy after boy managed to get on the river.The minister's son became an engineer.The doctor's and the post-master's sons became mud clerks; the wholesale liquor dealer's son became a barkeeper on a boat; four sons of the chief merchant,and two sons of the county judge,became pilots.Pilot was the grandest position of all.The pilot,even in those days of trivial wages,had a princely salary—from a hundred and fifty to two hundred and fifty dollars a month,and no board to pay.Two months of his wages would pay a preacher's salary for a year.Now some of us were left disconsolate.We could not get on the river—at least our parents would not let us.

So by and by I ran away.I said I never would come home again till I was a plot and could come in glory.But somehow I could not manage it.I went meekly aboard a few of the boats that lay packed together like sardines at the long St.Louis wharf,and very humbly inquired for the pilots,but got only a cold shoulder and short words from mates and clerks.I had to make the best of this sort of treatment for the time being,but I had comforting daydreams of a future when I should be a great and honored pilot,with plenty of money,and could kill some of these mates and clerks and pay for them.

The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County

Mark Twain

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 suspicion 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,and he would go to work and bore me to death with some exasperating reminiscence of him as long and as tedious as it should be useless to me.If that was the design,it succeeded.

I found Simon Wheeler dozing comfortably by the bar-room stove of the dilapidated tavern in the decayed mining camp of Angel's,and I noticed that he was fat and bald-headed,and had an 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 Angel's Camp.I added that if Mr.Wheeler could tell me anything 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 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 his 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 anything 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.I let him go on in his own way,and never interrupted him once.

"Rev.Leonidas W.H'm,Reverend Le—well,there was a feller here once by the name of Jim Smiley,in the winter of '49—or may be 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 warn't finished when he first come to the camp;but any way,he was the curiousest 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.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 solitary thing mentioned but that feller'd offer to bet on it,and take ary 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 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 see a straddle-bug start to go anywheres,he would bet you how long it would take him to get to—to 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'd 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 warn't going to save her; but one morning he come in,and Smiley up and asked him how she was,and he said she was considable better—thank the Lord for his infinite 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 resk two-and-a-half 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 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 under-jaw'd begin to stick out like the fo'castle of a steamboat,and his teeth would uncover and shine 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 just by the j'int of his hind leg and freeze to it—not chaw,you understand,but only just 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 sawed off in 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 see in a minute how he's 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 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 tomcats 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'lated to educate 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 ketching flies,and kep' him in practice so constant,that he'd nail a fly every time as fur 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 ag'in 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 straightfor'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 traveled and been everywheres,all said he laid over any frog that ever they see.

Well,Smiley kep't 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 acrost 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,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 give it back to Smiley,and says,very deliberate,'Well,' he says,'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 mature,as it were.Anyways,I've got my opinion and I'll resk forty dollars that he can outjump any frog in Calaveras county.'

And the feller studied 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 his 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 give 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's,and I'll give the word.' Then he says,'One—two—three-git!' and him and the feller touched up the frogs from behind,and the new frog hopped off lively,but Dan'l give a heave,and hysted up his shoulders—so—like a Frenchman,but it warn't no use—he couldn't budge; he was planted as solid as a church,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—so—at Dan'l,and says again,very deliberate,'Well,' he says,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 throw'd 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 the neck,and hefted him,and says,'Why blame my cats if he don't weigh five pound!' 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 sociable Wheeler returning,and he button-holed me and recommenced:

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

However,lacking both time and inclination,I did not wait to hear about the afflicted cow,but took my leave.