ld be discouragin'
'em too much."

Poor Jack, who had so unwittingly raised this storm, winced under the
words, which he knew were directed at him.

"Then why," said he, half in extenuation, "why don't you try to look
pleasant and cheerful? Why won't you be jolly, as Tom Piper's aunt is?"

"I dare say I ain't pleasant," said Aunt Rachel, "as my own nephew tells
me so. There is some folks that can be cheerful when their house is a
burnin' down before their eyes, and I've heard of one young man that
laughed at his aunt's funeral," directing a severe glance at Jack; "but
I'm not one of that kind. I think, with the Scriptures, that there's a
time to weep."

"Doesn't it say there's a time to laugh, also?" asked Mrs. Crump.

"When I see anything to laugh about, I'm ready to laugh," said Aunt
Rachel; "but human nature ain't to be forced. I can't see anything to
laugh at now, and perhaps you won't by and by."

It was evidently of no use to attempt a confutation of this, and the
subject dropped.

The tea-things were cleared away by Mrs. Crump, who afterwards sat down
to her sewing. Aunt Rachel continued to knit in grim silence, while
Jack seated himself on a three-legged stool near his aunt, and began
to whittle out a boat after a model lent him by Tom Piper, a young
gentleman whose aunt has already been referred to.

The cooper took out his spectacles, wiped them carefully with his
handkerchief, and as carefully adjusted them to his nose. He then
took down from the mantel-piece one of the few books belonging to his
library,--"Captain Cook's Travels,"--and began to read, for the tenth
time it might be, the record of the gallant sailor's circumnavigations.

The plain little room presented a picture of peaceful tranquillity, but
it proved to be only the calm which precedes a storm.

The storm in question, I regret to say, was brought about by the
luckless Jack. As has been said, he was engaged in constructing a boat,
the particular operation he was now intent upon being the excavation or
hollowing out. Now three-legged stools are not the most secure seats
in the world. That, I think, no one can doubt who has any practical
acquaintance with them. Jack was working quite vigorously, the block
from which the boat was to be fashioned being held firmly between his
knees. His knife having got wedged in the wood, he made an unusual
effort to draw it out, in which he lost his balance, and disturbed the
equilibrium of his stool,