The humorous frame story of this unlikely tale by Samuel Clemens (aka Mark Twain) satirizes the way late nineteenth-century American “Easterners” looked down on their supposedly less sophisticated Western compatriots. In the inner story, a man named Jim loves gambling so much that he will bet on almost anything. He finds a frog he believes can leap further than any other in Calaveras County, and learns an expensive lesson when a passing stranger bets against his frog and wins easily. Themes include regional stereotypes, storytelling (tall-tales), gambling consequences (there’s no such thing as a sure bet), trickery and deception.
There is an important word that may confuse readers from non-English speaking countries because it has a meaning which is very different to the one most commonly used. When Jim Smiley went down to the river to find another frog, the stranger took out a spoon and filled Dan’l Webster (Jim’s frog) with quail shot. Quail are a small species of bird and in this case shot means the small metal balls that are used when hunting them with a shotgun.
Original Text / PDF / Audio (2,600 words)