quite useless to persuade

  "Doesn't it say there's a time to laugh, too?" asked Mrs. Harding.   "When I see anything to laugh about, I'm ready to laugh," said Aunt Rachel; "but human nater 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 quite useless to persuade Rachel to cheerfulness, and the subject dropped.   The tea things were cleared away by Mrs. Harding, who then 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 mantelpiece one of the few books belonging to his library--"Dr. Kane's Arctic Explorations"--and began to read, for the tenth time, it might be, the record of these daring explorers.   The plain little room presented a picture of graceful tranquillity, but it proved to be only the calm which preceded the 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. This, I think, no one will deny 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, which, with its load, tumbled over backward. Now, it very unfortunately happened that Aunt Rachel sat close behind, and the treacherous stool came down with considerable force upon her foot.