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Savvy and cunning can trump training and education.

Throughout Simon Wheeler’s reminiscences, savvy and cunning individuals manage to outsmart their better-trained, more educated rivals. Jim Smiley is not an educated man and doesn’t have any particular trade or craft. Rather, he has taught himself how to gain an advantage in gambling through cunning. In time, Smiley becomes a master gambler, and he creates his own “luck.” His example suggests that training and education aren’t needed for success, so long as you are savvy enough. The story of Jim Smiley’s kindred spirit, the bull pup Andrew Jackson, is also a lesson in savvy and cunning. Like Smiley, Andrew Jackson has no training in being a fighting dog, but also like Smiley, Andrew Jackson knows how to seize an advantage when he sees it. Thus, Andrew Jackson lazes about until there is a chance to steal something. He similarly allows himself to get bullied by better-trained dogs until the money is up, at which point he seizes the opportunity and catches hold of the other dog’s leg. Andrew Jackson’s string of victories prove that well-timed cunning beats good training. 

The stranger’s defeat of Jim Smiley and his frog further illustrates how savvy and cunning can trump training and education. Smiley spends months on end training his frog Dan’l Webster to jump high and eat flies on command. By the end of this training period, Dan’l Webster is by far the most highly trained and “educated” animal Smiley has ever had. Yet in the end, the stranger uses his savvy and cunning to get time alone with Smiley’s frog so he can fill it with quail shot and rig the competition. Smiley the conman has been conned, proving that all of Dan’l Webster’s training and education were no match for the stranger’s cunning.

Tenacity and determination are necessary for success. 

Tenacity and determination serve Jim Smiley well in his exploits, and these characteristics often prove decisive in Smiley’s wins over his adversaries. Smiley’s reputation for being willing to take any side of any bet on any thing is significant because it shows how tenacity and determination turn Smiley into a successful gambling conman. In the early anecdotes about his gambling, Smiley does not appear particularly savvy. He makes bad bets, such as his bet that Parson Walker’s wife will die, or absurd bets, like a bet about where a straddle-bug will go and how long it will take to get there. However, because Smiley is so determined to gamble and be successful at it, his betting gets better. His tenacity leads him to eventually develop the lucrative method of using inside knowledge about certain animals to win money on them. 

Moreover, Jim Smiley’s animals themselves represent the value of tenacity and determination. Smiley’s mare is just about the last animal an outside observer would expect to win a race. She is always sick with something and starts each race badly. But when the horse realizes she might lose, she becomes “desperate” and determined to win. She looks ridiculous in doing so because she is not as strong or skilled as the other horses, but she usually wins nonetheless. Thus, it is the mare’s sheer tenacity and determination that spur her onward to a surprising victory over the strength and skill of her rivals. Similarly, Andrew Jackson’s sheer tenacity in grabbing a dog’s hind leg and refusing to let go makes up for his lack of strength and prowess. Finally, it is Smiley’s determination to train Dan’l Webster that results in his greatest success, when he turns the frog into the best jumper in all of Calaveras County.

Getting what you want sometimes means playing by your own rules. 

The main characters in “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” all recognize that in a place like Angel’s Camp, there are no rules, and getting what you want means playing by your own. Jim Smiley is a hustler whose only motivation is to win bets, and so he plays by his own rules or no rules at all. The animals he uses to do this likewise play by their own rules. A quality racing horse “should” be kept in good health and trained to race, but Jim Smiley’s mare is neither. Even with a head start, she begins slowly and lets the other horses pass her by. This is not something a race horse “should” do if it wants to win. Moreover, her running style is a mess, with legs flailing about and kicking up the dust while she coughs and sneezes her way toward the finish line. Nevertheless, she usually wins and only does so by doing it her own way. The bull pup Andrew Jackson is a similarly unconventional competitor who wins without engaging in the usual way a fighting dog “should.” 

The stranger who tricks Jim Smiley at the end also wins by making his own rules. It may be assumed that filling Dan’l Webster with quail shot would be unfair or against the rules, but in an illicit bet between two men, there are no rules. Thus, the stranger makes his own, grabs his advantage, and gets his forty dollars. Simon Wheeler’s reverence for Smiley and the stranger suggests that in a Gold Rush town, it is morally permissible, even admirable, to make your own rules in order to win out.

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