Part 14 (1/2)

[B] If the buildings should be painted, the flags should be of a color that would contrast with that of the paint.

JENNIE FINDS OUT HOW DISHES ARE MADE.

Ah! I know something! I know something you girls don't know! I know how they make dishes what you eat off of; and it's just the same way they make dolly's dishes, I guess.

Yes, I _do_ know. And I've got some pictures papa _drawed_ for me, too, and I'll tell you all about them. They're in my pocket right under my handkerchief. I put them under my handkerchief because I don't want them to get dirty. I've got some 'la.s.ses candy on top. I haven't got enough, or I'd give you all some.

Papa took me to a _pottery_. I don't know why they call it a pottery, for they make cups and saucers, and sugar-bowls, and everything. First the man took us through the _dressing-room_. I did not see any dresses, nor anybody dressing themselves. I only saw piles of dishes and men and women hammering at them. I asked papa why they called it that, and he said, wait till we come back, for that was the very last of all. So we went on into the yard. I looked into one part of the building where it was all dark, with three great chimneys, broad on the ground and narrow high up.

But the man and papa went right on, round to the other side of the building.

There wasn't anything to see, though, but horses and carts hauling clay, and great heaps of it on the ground. I wouldn't have called it anything but dirt, but papa said it was _kaolin_, not exactly dirt, but clay. He spelt it for me.

There was another of those big chimneys in the yard, only bigger. The man said that was where they dried the clay. Then he led us to a little door in the side of the house, and we went in. That brought us into a little room where they were getting the clay ready.

First there was a sand-screen--like Mike uses, where they sieved it. Next they weighed it and put it into bins. It looked like fine, dark flour.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE POTTER'S WHEEL.]

A little piece off from the bins there was a big deep box. They were mixing clay and water in it, and making a paste. It looked like lime when they're making mortar. The box leaked awfully, and white paste was running down on the floor.

At the end of the box they had a pump working, and it was pumping the paste into what they called a _press_. It was too funny for anything. I couldn't more than half understand it. But it looks something like a baby-crib, only it has slats across the top, and they're close together.

They have a lot of bags inbetween the slats, and the clay gets into the bags and gets pressed flat, so that most of the water is squeezed out.

When they take it out of the bags it looks something like a sheet of shortcake before it's cut or baked. Then they roll a lot of them together, and that's what they make dishes out of. They call it _biscuit_.

The man took us down into the cellar under the little room to show us the engine that made the paste and pumped and pressed the clay. I was afraid, and didn't want to go down, but papa said it was only a little one. It was nice and clean down there, with a neat brick floor, but awful hot. I was glad to come up.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE KILN AND SAGGERS.]

After the little room there's one big room where they don't do much of anything. It is like a large shed, for it is dark and has no floor. The dressing-room where we were first is on one side, and the dark room where the big chimneys are, is back of it. We went through it, and over to one side and up the stairs to the second story.

It's nice up there. It's one great big room, five times as big as our Sunday School room, with ever so many windows. All around the sides and down the middle, and cross-ways, and out in the wings are shelves, piled full of brand-new dishes. And there are tables all along the walls, and that's where they make them. I could stand and look all day.

I saw two boys throwing up a great big lump of clay and catching it; then cutting it with a string and putting the pieces together again, then throwing it up again, until it made me dizzy to look at them. I asked the man what they were doing, and he said, _wedging the clay_. That means taking the air out. They keep on doing that until there are no air-bubbles in it.

We stopped and talked to a man who was making a sugar-bowl, and he told us how he did it. All the men have on the table in front of them a lump of clay, a wheel, some moulds, a sharp knife, a bucket of water with a sponge in it, and something like the slab of a round, marble-topped table, only it's made of plaster Paris, to work on.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MOULD FOR A CUP.]

And do you know what the potter's-wheel is? It's as old as the hills and it's in the Bible, but I guess everybody don't know what it is. It looks as if it was made of hard, smooth, baked white clay, and is something like a grindstone, only not half as thick. The grindstone stands up, but this lays flat, with its round side turned up, like the head of a barrel.

And it's set on a pivot, like the needle of the compa.s.s in our geographies.

The moulds are like Miss f.a.n.n.y's wax-fruit moulds. They're made of plaster Paris, and they're round outside, and they have the shape of what the man wants to make on the inside, and they're in two pieces. Little things like cups are made in one mould; but big things like pitchers are made in two or three pieces, in two or three moulds, and then put together. Handles and spouts and such things are made separately in little moulds and put on afterwards.