nine o'clock
When the water began to go down their hearts sank with it ; and they gave up the hope of seeing the bridge carried away . Once the river rose to within a few feet of it , so that if the right piece of drift had been there to do its duty , the bridge might have been torn from its piers and swept down the raging tide into those unknown gulfs to the southward . Many a time they went to bed full of hope that it would at least happen in the night , and woke to learn with shame and grief in the morning that the bridge was still there , and the river was falling . It was a little comfort to know that some of the big boys had almost seen it go , watching as far into the night as nine o'clock with the men who sat up near the bridge till daylight : men of leisure and public spirit , but not perhaps the leading citizens . There must have been a tedious time between the going down of the flood and the first days when the water was warm enough for swimming ; but it left no trace . The boys are standing on the shore while the freshet rushes by , and then they are in the water , splashing , diving , ducking ; it is like that ; so that I do not know just how to get in that period of fishing which must always have come between . There were not many fish in that part of the Miami ; my boy 's experience was full of the ignominy of catching shiners and suckers , or , at the best , mudcats , as they called the yellow catfish ; but there were boys , of those who cursed and swore , who caught sunfish , as they called the bream ; and there were men who were reputed to catch at will , as it were , silvercats and river-bass .