In Mark Twain’s The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, Jim Smiley was addicted to gambling. He bet on anything from the time when Parson Walker’s wife would die to fights between his bulldog, Andrew Jackson, and other dogs. Twain wrote, “If he even seen a straddle bug start to go anywheres, he would bet you how long it would take him to get to—to wherever it was he was going to, and if you took him up on it, he would foller that straddle bug to Mexico but what he would find out where he was bound for and how long he was on the road.” But Jim Smiley met his match when a stranger came to town and agreed to bet him that his jumping frog could jump higher than Jim’s frog, which was named “Dan’l Webster.” Dan’l Webster might have won the jumping contest had the stranger played fair and square. He didn’t, however. When Jim wasn’t looking, the stranger poured some lead bullets into Dan’l Webster’s mouth. The frog was weighed down so much that he could barely jump, and so he lost the contest.
I was reminded of that classic story by what happened at Lake Ray Hubbard near Dallas last year. They were having a bass tournament, and Robby Rose entered the tournament. The grand prize for catching the largest fish by weight was a $55,000 Legend bass boat. Robby Rose brought a big bass in for the weigh-in, and it was very heavy. In fact, it was so heavy that it aroused the suspicions of the judges. When tournament officials examined the fish, they discovered a one-pound lead weight inside the stomach of the fish. Some forms of dishonesty are tolerated in Texas, but not cheating in a bass tournament. The district attorney’s office in Rockwall charged Rose with criminal cheating, and the trial was held recently. Rose was convicted, sentenced to 15 days in jail, and ordered to surrender his fishing license for the duration of his five years’ probation that will follow his time in jail.
There has long been a shadow of suspicion hanging over the honesty of hunters and fishers. In Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’ book, The Yearling, Penny Baxter had a no-good hunting dog he wanted to unload. Hunters were known to brag about their dogs and lie about how good they were so Penny decided to tell the truth about how sorry his dog was. Nobody had ever heard a man tell the truth about his dog before, so Lemm Forester figured that Penny must be trying to hide what a great dog he really had. He went to Penny’s place the next day with a fine shotgun to make a trade. Penny protested the dog was no good. Lemm insisted. He said, “Don’t argue with me. Take the gun for him or I’ll come steal him.” Penny relented and let him have the dog.
Our world is rife with dishonesty. Don’t be a part of it. Paul said, “Be blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation” (Philip. 2:15).
