Squills was called in. "Tonics!" said Mr. Squills; "and don't let him sit over his book. Send him out in the air; make him play. Come here, my boy: these organs are growing too large;" and Mr. Squills, who was a phrenologist, placed his hand on my forehead. "Gad, sir, here's an ideality for you; and, bless my soul, what a, constructiveness!" My father pushed aside his papers, and walked to and fro the room with his hands behind him; but he did not say a word till Mr. Squills was gone. "My dear," then said he to my mother, on whose breast I was leaning my aching ideality--"my dear, Pisistratus must go to school in good earnest." "Bless me, Austin!--at his age?" "He is nearly eight years old." "But he is so forward." "It is for that reason he must go to school." "I don't quite understand you, my love. I know he is getting past me; but you who are so clever--" My father took my mother's hand: "We can teach him nothing now, Kitty. We send him to school to be taught--" "By some schoolmaster who knows much less than you do--" "By little schoolboys, who will make him a boy again," said my father, almost sadly. "My dear, you remember that when our Kentish gardener planted those filbert-trees, and when they were in their third year, and you began to calculate on what they would bring in, you went out one morning, and found he had cut them down to the ground. You were vexed, and asked why. What did the gardener say? 'To prevent their bearing too soon.' There is no want of fruitfulness here: put back the hour of produce, that the plant may last." "Let me go to school," said I, lifting my languid head and smiling on my father. I understood him at once, and it was as if the voice of my life itself answered him. CHAPTER VI. A year after the resolution thus come to, I was at home for the holidays. "I hope," said my mother, "that they are doing Sisty justice. I do think he is not nearly so quick a child as he was before he went to school. I wish you would examine him, Austin." "I have examined him, my dear. It is just as I expected; and I am quite satisfied." "What! you really think he has come on?" said my mother, joyfully. "He does not care a button for botany now," said Mr. Squills. "And he used to be so fond of music, dear boy!" observed my mother, with a sigh. "Good gracious, what noise is that?" "Your son's pop-gun against the window," said my father. "It is lucky it is only the window; it would have made a less deafening noise, though, if it had been Mr. Squills's head, as it was yesterday morning." "The left ear," observed Squills; "and a very sharp blow it was too. Yet you are satisfied, Mr. Caxton?" "Yes; I think the boy is now as great a blockhead as most boys of his age are," observed my father with great complacency. "Dear me, Austin,--a great blockhead?" "What else did he go to school for?" asked my father.