In compliance with the request of my teacher, Mr. Kissingford, I visited my good-natured, garrulous old grandpa, and inquired after the famous Leonidas W. Smiley, as requested to do, and I hereunto append the result. I have a lurking suspicion that Leonidas W. Smiley is a myth; that my teacher never knew such a personage; and that he only conjectured that, if I asked my old grandpa about him, it would remind him of the infamous Jim Smiley, and he would go to work and bore me nearly to death with a series of infernal reminiscences of him as long and tedious as it should be useless to me. If that was the design, it certainly succeeded.
I found my grandpa dozing comfortably, and smoking his pipe diligently, in his bathtub, fully clothed, and I noticed that his bald head and hunched back were more crinkled than ever. His lack of eyebrows contrasted interestingly with his full beard, which I noticed was the home of three blackbirds, a cardinal, two bluebirds, and their various nests.
He roused up and gave me good-day. I told him my teacher had commissioned me to make some inquiries about a cherished companion of his boyhood named Leonidas W. Smiley. I added that, if he could tell me any thing about this Reverend Leonidas W. Smiley, I would feel under many obligations to him.
Grandpa backed me into a corner and blockaded me there with his chair, and then sat me down and reeled off the monotonous narratives which follow this paragraph. He never smiled, he never frowned, he never changed his voice from the gentle-flowing key to which he tuned the initial sentence, he never betrayed the slightest suspicion of enthusiasm; but all through the interminable narrative there ran a vein of impressive earnestness and sincerity, which showed me plainly that, so far from his imagining that there was anything ridiculous or funny about his story, he regarded it as a really important matter. As I said before, I asked him to tell me what he knew of Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, and he replied as follows. I let him go on in his own way, and never interrupted him once:
There was a feller here once by the name of Jim Smiley. He had a thing for gambling and one day lost very badly in a spitting contest to a cop and had to slap a bison on the plains nearby. He was walking and came across a cop who wanted to make a wager so he suggested a spitting contest and use sticks to measure and he said loser has to slap a bison in the herd nearby. When both were ready the cop went first and got a couple feet ahead by a tree and Jim spit on the cop, who handcuffed him, and put him in jail overnight.
Another time, Jim Smiley was accused of stealing chickens from the library. The library told the police because they saw him petting the chickens, and the next thing they knew, the chickens were gone. You are probably wondering why the library has chickens. They make omelettes all the time and use the eggs from the chickens. Which came first, the chicken or the library? Jim Smiley thought the egg came first so he took the chickens to experiment. Mr. Smiley is not a responsible person and when he loaded the chickens into his wagon, they all waddled away. He tried to chase them, but that made the chickens run faster. He called 911 thinking that the police could set up a blockade around the town, but instead they just arrested him. Then the police brought in the swat team to find the chickens before someone else stole and ate them. They also brought in the helicopters to search from the skies and the coast guard to search the rivers. The police finally brought Smiley to jail and he was really afraid, because no one wants to go to jail. While he was lying in his really uncomfortable jail bed, he heard a noise from down the hall. It sounded like someone was scratching the floor. He crawled over the the cell door with a shank in his hand, but it turned out to be just another chicken, looking for corn.
He ate lots of cheese, Jim did, he had big bifocals, and he loved watching horses. You see back in the days when me and Jim were boys, betting on horse races wasn’t perfectly legal. Due to this simple fact the horses he would go watch would attract a less than honorable crowd. But you see Jim Smiley didn’t care much about this. Jim Smiley was one of these dishonorable men. Jim always went to the races wearing a big leather coat. It didn’t matter if it was winter, summer, spring, or fall. Smiley would always wear his leather coat. Jim used this coat to hide his weapon, you see. Jim was not the worst nor the best at gambling, but when he did lose his bets he wouldn’t lose a dime. He would carry a small piece of chain and hold it in the sleeve of his coat in case something went south. And then if he needed to get himself out of trouble he had a time stopper to go back and make sure he would win the bet. Smiley somehow ended up racing sometimes, not just betting now, mind you, he wasn’t the best but since he had that handy dandy time stopper he could win anything he wanted to since he literally had all the time in the world. Jim Smiley therefore became one of the most known horse racers and better in the world. No one knew his secret though.
He fancied men like I fancied your Grandma. May she rest in pieces. Jim Smiley was always trying to be one of the guys. He would participate in hoedowns and always try to do a backflip over the campfire. He would take any dare the guys gave him. He would always try to impress them whenever he could. One day Jim was with my good friend Tim. Tim dared Jim to compete in a barrel race along the river. Not wanting to be a chicken, Jim accepted the dare. He grabbed his barrel and met Tim at the river during church. Tim went first: he climbed into his barrel and had Jim push him into the river. Once Tim was in the river he floated daintily down. Following his lead only seconds behind Jim rolled himself into the river after him. Wanting to catch up with Tim, Jim leaned in his bucket facing down river. But alas Jim leaned too far and fell face first into the river. He was completely soaked and had to walk all the way home. Soon he was covered in mud. When he arrived home, his mother was shocked by his appearance. He got a quick smack upside the face.
His eyes so gullible and his personality so horrid he walked the streets. With a hundred dollars in his left pocket, he headed to the casino. Jim Smiley drank five juice boxes thinking this would tip him over, and became involved in a Wild West fight. Pausing to take a chug of Strawberry Avocado Bell Pepper juice, he called out “I challenge the bartender to eat as many live goldfish that he can in under 10 hours.” With a smirk on his crooked boned smile he snorted his laughs. The bartender set down a shot glass with 1,000 fish eggs covered in butter and spices. Smiley’s giggles turned to cackles as he turned his head to look at the glass full of fish eggs. Smiley and the Bartender took the challenge and took the eggs. Looking at Smiley he handed him a tank of fish. Jim ate none of the slimy fish. The bartender sat with a full stomach and one hundred dollars in his left pocket.
Jim Smiley was also a frog murderer. He liked to rip off frog parts limb by limb, slowly tearing them apart. After he snapped their neck, he ate their brains. Sometimes Jim even kept a frog or two in his pocket so he could torture them later. His tiny hands were perfect for dissecting the frogs and his agility helped him catch them. His dark skin camouflaged him so he could go unseen before he captured a frog. Jim found pleasure in murdering innocent beings, and frogs were the perfect victim.
Jim Smiley was tall and lean with one glass eye that had a tendency to fall out. He was know around town as the local drunkard. His daily routine consisted of daily trips to the tavern for a rum and coke when not working at his day job as the town's mortician. One day the bartender decided to test an experiment on Jim. Instead of a rum and coke, the bartender handed Jim a virgin coke. Jim quickly downed the glass and proceeded to stumble out of the tavern. All night the town’s people laughed at Jim as he walked and yodeled around town like the drunkard he was, yet he had not had a drop of liquor in hours.
Here Grandpa heard his name called, and got up to see what was wanted. And turning to me as he moved away, he said: "Just sit where you are, and rest easy. I ain't going to be gone a second."
But, by your leave, I did not think that a continuation of the history of Jim Smiley would be likely to afford me much information concerning the Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, and so I started away.
At the door I met my sociable Grandpa returning, and he button- holed me and recommenced:
"Well,.... "
Bidding Grandpa good-day, I departed.