What followed may easily be guessed.

We all lay as silent as the grave, each waiting for some one else to rise and bring the impatient lad across.
At last the stillness would be broken by some one's yelling out that he would do for that boy.

A second would mutter horribly in his sleep; a third would make himself a favorite for the moment by shouting through the wooden partition that it was the fifth's turn this morning.

The fifth would tell us where he would see the boy before he went across for him.

Then there would be silence again.