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.