the wall, he would order the pupil to sit down
on it with his back pressing against the wall. Then he would remove the
stool, leaving the offender in a sitting posture, with his back to the
wall and his knees flexed. By the time the victim had been there ten
minutes, he wished never to repeat the experience. I know whereof I
speak, for I "sat on nothing" three times that winter.

Czar Brench's most picturesque, not to say bizarre, punishment was for
buzzing lips. Many of us, studying hard to get our lessons, were very
likely to make sounds with our lips, and in the silence of that
schoolroom the least little lisp was sure to reach the master's ear.

"Didn't I hear a buzzer then?" he would ask in his softest tone, raising
his finger to point to the offender. "Ah, yes. It is--it is _you_! Come
out here. Those lips need a lesson."

The lesson consisted in your standing, facing the school, with your
mouth propped open. The props were of wood, and were one or two inches
long, for small or large "buzzers."

I remember one day when six boys--and I believe one girl--stood facing
the school with their mouths propped open at full stretch, each gripping
a book and trying to study! Inveterate "buzzers"--those who had been
called out two or three times--had not only to face the school with
props in their mouths but to mount and stand on top of the master's
desk.

If Czar Brench had not been so big and strong, the older boys would no
doubt have rebelled and perhaps carried him out of the schoolhouse,
which was the early New England method of getting rid of an unpopular
schoolmaster. None of the boys, however, dared raise a finger against
him, and he ruled his little kingdom as an absolute monarch. At last,
however, towards the close of the term, some one dared to defy him--and
it was not one of the big boys, but our youthful neighbor Catherine
Edwards.

That afternoon Czar Brench had put a prop in Rufus Darnley, Jr.'s mouth.
Rufus was only twelve years old and by no means one of the bright boys
of the school. He stuttered in speech, and, being dull, had to study
very hard to get his lessons. Every day or two he forgot his lips and
"buzzed." I think he had stood on the master's desk four or five times
that term.

It was a high desk; and that afternoon Rufus, trying to study up there,
with his mouth propped open, lost his balance and fell to the floor in
front of the desk. In falling, the prop was knocked out of his mouth.

A