If the goats hadn't bin brought here there wouldn't 'a' bin any need fer that.
Not to mention garden robbin' before, an' broken fences an' such.' 'The School Committee, ma'am,' said Peterson, 'has drawed up a list of suspects, an' the fathers of the boys named will lambaste 'em all thorough.

Now it occurred to the committee that your boy, bein' the worst o' the pack, an' havin' confessed, oughter get a fair share o' the hammerin'.' 'An' you've come to offer to do it ?' 'That's just it, ma'am, if you'll be so kind.' Mrs.Haddon had a proper sense of her public duties, a due appreciation of the extent of Dick's wickedness, and a full knowledge of her own inefficiency as a scourger.

She looked down and debated anxiously with herself, carefully avoiding Dick's eye, and Dick watched her all the time, but did not speak a word or make a single plea.
'Can't I beat my own boy ?' she asked angrily.
'To be certain sure, ma'am, but you're a small bit of a woman, an' it don't seem altogether square dealin' fer the others to get a proper hidin' an' him not.

'Sides, 'twould satisfy public feelin' better if one of us was to lam him.

Sound, ma'am, but judicious,' said Cairn.
'Au' 'twould save you further trouble,' added Peterson.