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 'lasses 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.
[Illustration: 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.
[Illustration: 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.
[Illustration: 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 compass in our
geographies.
The moulds are like Miss Fanny'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.
[Illustration: HANDLE MOULD.]
Here's the way. First the man cuts off a piece of the biscuit, and kneads
it on the plaster Paris slab. Then he takes one piece of the mould, fixes
the clay in nicely, shaves off what he don't want, then puts on the other
piece of the mould, and sets it on the wheel. He gives it a shove and
sets it spinning. It stops itself after a while, then he opens the mould,
and there is the dish. The clay keeps the same thickness all through, and
fills both pieces of the mould.
[Illustration: MAKING A SUGAR-BOWL.]
Then the man takes it out and sponges it. If it isn't just the right
shape all he has to do is wet it, and it will come right. Then he puts on
the handle or puts the pieces together, fixing them just so with his
fingers and knife. It isn't very hard, but he has to be careful. The soft
dishes look real cute. Then they're ready to be burnt the first time.
We walked all around and saw here one man making cups, another, tureens,
another, bird-baths, and every imaginable thing that is ever made in
porcelain. Then we went down-stairs, through the dark rooms, into where
the tall chimneys are. Then I found out they called them _kilns_. They
have at the bottom a prodigious furnace, over that a tremendous oven,
where they put the dishes in to bake.
But they don't put them right in just as they are. Oh, no. There were on
the high shelves all around, a lot of things called _saggers_. They look
something like bandboxes made of firebrick. The soft dishes are put in
them, the lids are put on, and then they are piled up in the oven. Then
the men build a big fire in the furnace, and let it burn for several
days. When it goes out they let several more days go by for the kiln to
cool, and then take out the saggers. When the dishes are taken out they
are hard and rough and of a yellowish white. They build the fire after
they get them in, and let it out and the kiln cool off before they take
them out, because the men have to go in and out the big ovens.
Wouldn't you think a pile of soft plates and saucers would burn all
together and stick fast to each other? Well, they don't. There are little
things made of hard clay with three bars and three feet, and they put
them in between dishes so that one plate has one in it, and the next
plate sets on top of that, so that they can't stick together. Did you
ever see three little dark spots on the bottom of a saucer? This is what
makes them. There are lots and lots of these little stands lying all
around everywhere, and broken pieces of them and the clay, scattered like
flour all over the ground and floors thick.
We next went into the room back of the kilns. It had shelves all around,
too, and there were piles of dishes after the first burning. A lot of
women sat on stools on the floor and they were brushing the fire cracks
with some stuff out of little bottles. This was to fill them up so that
the glazing wouldn't run in.
[Illustration: REST FOR FLAT DISHES.]
We went into another room at one side of the first and there's where they
did the glazing. They called it _dipping_. There was a large tank in the
middle of the room with a deep red liquid in it. Papa asked the man what
it was, and he said it was a secret preparation. The men dipped the
dishes in, and they came out a beautiful pink, so pretty that it seemed a
pity they couldn't stay so. There were shelves all around this room, too,
and there the dishes look like they do when we see them--the pink glazing
has turned white.
There is nothing more done to them except the _dressing_. We had now gone
all around, and were almost at the _dressing-room_ where we started. And
when we went in again we found that the dressing was nothing but knocking
off any rough lumps with a chisel. I remember every bit of it. And every
time I look at dishes I think there are ever so many things we use every
day and don't know anything about.