How the Celebrated Humorist Came to Write “The Jumping Frog”
[excerpt from The Sunday Herald, Washington, D.C., April 26, 1885]
The portion of the pocket-miner among the other inhabitants of a mining region very much resembles that of the bee-hunter among the people of the frontier settlements in agricultural regions. The business he follows also has several points of resemblance to that of the bee-hunter. The trail followed by one leads him to the tree stored with sweets, and that of the other ends in a pocket of sweetest gold. The man who becomes an expert bee-hunter is likely to remain a bee-hunter all his days, and the same may be said of a pocket-miner.
Mark Twain’s narrow escape from becoming a pocket-miner has never been told. It is worth recording, as it gave him the story of the “Jumping Frog” and sent him off along the line of the literary lode and set him to scratching therein for pockets of fun.
In 1865 Mark wearied of Bohemian life in San Francisco and went up into the mining regions of Calaveras County to rusticate with some old friends–Steve, Jim, and Billy Gillis. Jim Gillis was, and still is, one of the most expert pocket-miners in California. Although educated with a view eventually to fight the battle of life as a physician, and though still finding solace in his leisure moments in the works of Greek and Latin authors reposing on a
shelf in his cabin, Jim Gillis is booked for life as a pocket-miner.
The business has charms for him that he cannot break away from — he is bound to it in chains of gold. Show him a particle of quartz gold on the side of a mountain, and if it came to where it was found through the process or accidents of nature undisturbed in any way by the interference of man, he will as unerringly trace it to its source as the bee-hunter will follow the bee to its board of sweets.
Mark Twain found the Bohemian style of mining practiced by the “Gillis boys” much more attractive than those more regular kinds, which call for a large outlay of muscle. He and Jim Gillis took to the hills in search of golden pockets and spent some days in working up the undisturbed trail of an undiscovered deposit. They were on the golden “bee-line” and stuck to it faithfully, though it was necessary to carry each sample of dirt to a small stream in the bed up a canyon in order to pan it out.
Each step made sure by golden grains, they at last came upon the pocket, which had thrown these grains off. It was a cold, dreary, drizzling day when the “home deposit” was found. The first sample carried to the stream and washed out yielded but a few cents. Although the right vein had been discovered, they had as yet found but the “tail-end” of the pocket. Returning to the vein, they dug a sample from a new place, and were about to carry it down to the ravine and test it when the rain began to pour down heavily.
With chattering teeth, Mark declared he would remain no longer. He said there was no sense in freezing to death, as in a day or two, when it was bright and warm, they could return and pursue their investigations in comfort. Yielding to Mark’s entreaties, backed as they were by his blue nose, humped back, and generally miserable dejected appearance, Jim emptied the sacks of dirt upon the ground, first hastily written and posted up a notice of their claim to a certain number of feet of the vein, which notice would hold good for thirty days.
Angels’ Camp being at no great distance from the spot, while their cabin was some miles away, Mark and Jim struck out for that place. The only hotel in the little mining camp was kept by one Coon Drayton, an old Mississippi River pilot, and at his house the half-drunken pocket-miners found shelter. Mark Twain, having formerly followed the business of pilot on the Mississippi River, he and Coon were soon great friends and swapped scores of yarns. It continued to rain for three days, and until the weather cleared up, Mark and Jim remained at Coon’s Hotel.
The story of the “jumping frogs” was one of the yarns told Mark by Coon during the three days’ session, and it struck him as being so comical that he determined to write it up. When he returned to the Gillis cabin, Mark set to work upon the frog story. He also wrote some sketches of life in the mountains and mines for some of the San Francisco papers.
Mark did not think much of the frog story, even after it had received the finishing touches. He gave the preference to some other sketches, and sent them to the papers for which he was writing. Steve Gillis, however, declared that the frog story was the best thing Mark had written, and advised him to save it for a book of sketches he was talking of publishing. A literary turn having been given to the thoughts of the inmates of the Gillis cabin, a month passed without a return to the business of pocket-mining.
While the days were passed by Mark and his friends discussing the merits of the “Jumping Frog” and other literary matters, other prospectors were not idle. A trio of Austrian miners who were out in search of gold-bearing quartz happened upon the spot where Mark and Jim had dug into their ledge. It was but a few days after Twain and Gillis had retreated from the place in the pouring rain.
The Austrians were not a little astonished at seeing the ground glittering with gold. Where the dirt emptied from the sacks had been dissolved and washed away by the rain lay some three ounces of bright quartz gold. The foreigners were not long in gathering this, but the speedy discovery of the notice forbade them delving into the deposit whence it came. They could wait and “watch and pray.” This hope was that the parties who had posted up the notice would not return while it held good.
The sun that rose on the day after the Twain-Gillis notice expired saw the Austrians in possession of the ground, with a notice of their own conspicuously and defiantly posted. The new owners cleaned out the pocket, obtaining from it in a few days, a little over $7,500.
Had Mark Twain’s backbone held out a little longer, the sack of dirt would have been washed and the grand discovery made. He would not have then gone to Angels’ Camp, and would probably never have heard or written the story of the “Jumping Frog,” the story that gave him his first “boost” in the literary world, as the “Heathen Chinee” gave Bret Harte his first lift up the ladder. Had Mark found the gold that was captured by the Austrians he would have settled down as a pocket-miner. He would never have given up the chase, and till this day, gray as a badger, he would have been pounding quartz, with Jim Gillis for his “pard,” in a cabin somewhere in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.