"Course she is," declared Frane, Junior. "She makes us study. I hate to."
"Well, sometimes I don't like what they make us learn in school," admitted Russ slowly. "But I guess it's good for us."
"How do you know, it is?" demanded the other. "I don't feel any better after I study. I only get the headache."
Russ could not find an immediate answer for this statement. Besides, there was something right in front of him then that aroused his interest. It was a big log spanning the stream, with a shaky railing nailed to it, made of a long pole attached to several uprights.
"That is the funniest bridge I ever saw," he declared. "Will it hold you?"
"Look at that log. It would hold a hundred elephants," declared Frane, Junior, who was inclined to exaggerate a good deal at times.
"Not all at once!" cried Russ.
"Yes, sir. If you could get 'em on it," said Frane. "But I don't s'pose the railing would stand it."
When the boys went out on the bridge and Russ considered the railing he was very sure that this last statement of his little friend was true, whether any others were or not. The railing "wabbled" very much, and Russ refrained from leaning against it.
"Now, you folks keep back!" whispered Frane shrilly to the colored children who had followed them. "I want to show him the big fellow that sleeps down here."