ter 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 asked him what he wanted there at that
time of night; and Jim could not say he wanted coffee, and
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