all ran to watch it
as soon as school was out, and stayed till they had to go to supper. After
supper some of their mothers let them come back and stay till bedtime, if
they would promise to keep a full yard back from the edge of the bank.
They could not be sure just how much a yard was, and they nearly all sat
down on the edge and let their legs hang over.

Jim Leonard was there, holloing and running up and down the bank, and
showing the other boys things away out in the river that nobody else could
see; he said he saw a man out there. He had not been to supper, and he had
not been to school all day, which might have been the reason why he would
rather stay with the men and watch the bridge than go home to supper; his
mother would have been waiting for him with a sucker from the pear-tree.
He told the boys that while they were gone he went out with one of the men
on the bridge as far as the middle pier, and it shook like a leaf; he
showed with his hand how it shook.

Jim Leonard was a fellow who believed he did all kinds of things that he
would like to have done; and the big boys just laughed. That made Jim
Leonard mad, and he said that as soon as the bridge began to go, he was
going to run out on it and go with it; and then they would see whether he
was a liar or not! They mocked him and danced round him till he cried. But
Pony Baker, who had come with his father, believed that Jim Leonard would
really have done it; and at any rate, he felt sorry for him when Jim
cried.

He stayed later than any of the little fellows, because his father was
with him, and even all the big boys had gone home except Hen Billard, when
Pony left Jim Leonard on the bank and stumbled sleepily away, with his
hand in his father's.

When Pony was gone, Hen Billard said: "Well, going to stay all night,
Jim?"

And Jim Leonard answered back, as cross as could be, "Yes, I am!" And he
said the men who were sitting up to watch the bridge were going to give
him some of their coffee, and that would keep him awake. But perhaps he
thought this because he wanted some coffee so badly. He was awfully
hungry, for he had not had anything since breakfast, except a piece of
bread-and-butter that he got Pony Baker to bring him in his pocket when
he came down from school at noontime.

Hen Billard said, "Well, I suppose I won't see you any more, Jim;
good-bye," and went away laughing; and after a while one of the men saw
Jim Leonard hanging about, and aske