The Least Little Toad Frog I Ever Did See

I grew up in the country and one particularly rainy summer, our entire gravel road was filled with both mud puddles and toads half the size of my thumb nail. The title of this blog entry is my neighbor's reaction when my little sister and I, so proud of our discovery, showed her. My neighbor was like a grandma to me, an elderly lady who had grown up in the South. She was full of these colorful phrases and was one of the kindest people I'd ever met. We used to sit for hours on her front lawn, sipping lemonade and talking with her.

Well, she did most of the talking. The truth is, Simon Wheeler's monologue about Leonidas W. Smiley could have been a direct quote of one of my neighbor's stories. For her, everything contained at least two shaggy dog stories. Her descriptions were so circular; she'd begin telling one story, remind herself (without explaining the connection to us) of another story, tell that one, pick back up at the exact place that she left off in the first story, get sidetracked again, and finish after making our head spins so much we were no longer sure what the end had to do with anything at all. But she knew, and it was certainly entertaining to listen to her get there.

When Wheeler starts talking about Jim Smiley, Twain tells us he "never smiled, he never frowned, he never changed his voice from the quiet, gently-flowing key to which he turned the initial sentence, he never betrayed the slightest suspicion of enthusiasm" (171). No wonder Twain was angry at Mr. A Ward for sending him to this man. I can't imagine having sat through all those stories of my neighbor's if she hadn't been absolutely loving every minute of the transaction. Her stories were full of animation and joy. Her voice changed to indicate different characters, different emotions, and she waved her arms around expressively as she gestured to make sure we understood.

Wheeler's turns of phrase and descriptive metaphors make his story come to life. When he says the frog was "whirling in the air like a doughnut," I can see it. And of course the frog hit the floor "as solid as a gob of mud" (174); now it seems like the only reasonable way for a frog to hit the floor. The personification of these outrageous animals is also pure entertainment. When Andrew Jackson "gave Smiley a look as much as to say his heart was broke," I really felt for him. I believe, truly, that Dan'l Webster was "modest and straight for'ard" (174).

But as I read it, I heard it in my neighbor's voice. I couldn't make the description Twain gives of Wheeler's narration match the story itself. This is a story that demands animation. I don't blame the listener for getting up and leaving before hearing about the yellow cow, but if my neighbor had been telling it, I bet he would have stayed.