And the I'm going to help you fall asleep.

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Tonight we'll read the 1865 Mark Twain short story, The

celebrated jumping frog of Calaveras County.

It was Twain's first great success as a writer and brought him national attention.

In it, the narrator retels a story he heard from a bartender, Simon Wheeler, in California, about the

gambler named Jim Smiley. Jim Smiley is described as betting on just about anything. For example, on the

travels of a straddle bug. If you're wondering what a straddle bug is, just picture a large commonplace medium.

Let's get cozy.

close your eyes.

relax your body.

Relax your body into the softness of your bed.

Now, take a few deep breaths. 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 hear and to append the result, I have a lurking suspicion that Leonidas W Smiley is a myth and that

my friend never knew such a personage and that he only conjectured if I asked old Wheeler

about him it would remind him of his infamous Jim Smiley. It would go to work and bore me to death with some exasperating reminiscence of him as long and his

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.

...