February 6 Monday – The men did some mining, but rains returned and they passed time telling tall tales and jokes. Benson writes:
“Most of the days at Angel’s Camp were spent by Mark and Jim and Stoker in the barroom of the dilapidated tavern. Here they found themselves in the company of a frequenter of the tavern, Ben Coon” [126].
Paine writes of Ben Coon:
…a former Illinois River pilot…a solemn, fat-witted person, who dozed by the stove, or told slow, endless stories, without point or application. Listeners were a boon to him, for few came and not many would stay…One dreary afternoon, in his slow, monotonous fashion, he told them about a frog—a frog that had belonged to a man named Coleman, who trained it to jump, but that failed to win a wager because the owner of a rival frog had surreptitiously loaded the trained jumper with shot [MTB 271]. In other words, Sam was a boon to Ben Coon, a slam for Sam. Lorch writes that Sam had probably heard versions of the story previously, but was captivated by Coon’s “exquisite absurdity …[in] manner of telling the story without betraying a single hint that he regarded it as humorous” [12]. Sam later wrote this story and it made him famous: “Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog.” (Later, the “Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” and also the “Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.”)
From Sam’s notebook:
“Blazing hot days & cool nights. No more rain. “Odd or Even”—cast away at Honey Lake Smith’s. Billy Clagett moved fifteen steps from camp fire by the lice crawling on his body” [MTNJ 1: 78].