Sketches New and Old


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of his hind leg and freeze to it--not chaw, you understand, but only just  
grip and hang on till they throwed up the sponge, if it was a year.  
Smiley always come out winner on that pup, till he harnessed a dog once  
that didn't have no hind legs, because they'd been sawed off in a  
circular saw, and when the thing had gone along far enough, and the money  
was all up, and he come to make a snatch for his pet holt, he see in a  
minute how he'd been imposed on, and how the other dog had him in the  
door, so to speak, and he 'peared surprised, and then he looked sorter  
discouraged-like and didn't try no more to win the fight, and so he got  
shucked out bad. He give Smiley a look, as much as to say his heart was  
broke, and it was his fault, for putting up a dog that hadn't no hind  
legs for him to take holt of, which was his main dependence in a fight,  
and then he limped off a piece and laid down and died. It was a good  
pup, was that Andrew Jackson, and would have made a name for hisself if  
he'd lived, for the stuff was in him and he had genius--I know it,  
because he hadn't no opportunities to speak of, and it don't stand to  
reason that a dog could make such a fight as he could under them  
circumstances if he hadn't no talent. It always makes me feel sorry when  
I think of that last fight of his'n, and the way it turned out.  
"
Well, thish-yer Smiley had rat-tarriers, and chicken cocks, and tomcats  
and all them kind of things, till you couldn't rest, and you couldn't  
fetch nothing for him to bet on but he'd match you. He ketched a frog  
one day, and took him home, and said he cal'lated to educate him; and so  
he never done nothing for three months but set in his back yard and learn  
that frog to jump. And you bet you he did learn him, too. He'd give him a  
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Page
22 23 24 25 26

Quick Jump
1 101 201 302 402