THE SURPRISE.
It is perhaps needless to inform our readers that Sammy did not find
the "sley" on that eventful day when he threw the water in the baby's
face; but his mother got the baby to sleep, and found it. On the
morning of the third day, she had just entered the door of the kitchen
with a pail of water in her hand, when she encountered Sammy (followed
by Louisa Holt, Maud Stewart, Jane Proctor, and a crowd of boys) with
the bean-pot in his hand, which he placed upon the table with an air of
great satisfaction.
It was some time before the good woman could be brought to believe that
Sam made it. She knew that of late he had been much at the mill with
Mr. Seth, and supposed he must have made and given it to him; but, when
she became convinced of the fact, the happy mother clasped him in her
arms, exclaiming,--
"Who says Sammy's fit for nothing but mischief? Who is it says that?
Let him look at that pot, as nice a one as ever a woman baked beans in,
and a cover too. Harry has made pails, tubs, a churn, and a good many
other things; but he never made an earthen pot, nor any man in this
place. My sakes! to think we've got a potter among us! what a blessing
he will be! There's not another woman in the settlement has got a
bean-pot."
"Mrs. Sumerford, only see the printing and the pictures on it," said
Maud Stewart.
"Pictures and printing! I must get my glasses."
After putting on her spectacles, the happy mother expressed her
astonishment in no measured terms.
"'For Mother:' he's his mother's own blessed baby. But did you truly
make the letters, and the leaves on there, your own self?"
"Yes, mother: I did it alone in the woods; only Mr. Seth made the
letters on some bark for me, but I put 'em on the pot."
"Now I'll bake a mess of beans in it, just to christen it. Girls, you
help me pick over the beans; and I'll put 'em on to parboil afore we
sit down to dinner, and have 'em for supper. I want you all to stay to
dinner and supper both. The boys can play with Sammy; and the girls and
I'll make some buttermilk biscuit for supper, and a custard pudding.
"Girls, I'm going to draw a web of linen into the loom; and you can
help me, and learn how; play with the baby and the bear: baby's bear'll
play real good; he's a good creature. He'll tear all the bark off the
tree with his claws; but, when he's playing with baby, he'll pull 'em
all into the fur, so his paw is soft as can be. Harry, Elick, and
Enoch'll be home from the scout; and what think they'll say when they
come to know that Sammy's made a pot, and his mother's baked beans in
it?"
"Mother, may I ask Uncle Seth to come to supper? I want him to see the
pot, 'cause he told me how to fix the clay, and bake it."
"Sartain: I'd like to have Mr. Seth come every night in the week. This
pot isn't glazed, to be sure; but I'll rub it with tallow and beeswax:
I've heard my husband say that was the way the Indians used to do their
pots."
"Mr. Seth said the Indians used to make pots, mother."
"Sartain, dear, the Indians clear back; but now they get iron ones of
the white folks, and people reckon they've lost the art. If you look on
the side of the river where the old Indian town used to be, where you
go to get arrow-heads, you'll find bottoms of pots washing out of the
banks, and sometimes half of one."
The good woman stuffed the pot thoroughly with tallow and wax, dusted
some flour over it, and put it in the beans and pork.
Mrs. Sumerford had no oven; but that did not in the least interfere
with baking the beans. With the kitchen shovel she threw back the ashes
and coals on the hearth, and took up a flat stone under which was a
square hole dug in the hearth (the house had no cellar), lined with
flat stones. Into this hole she put wood and hot coals till it was
thoroughly heated: then she cleaned the cavity, put in the pot, covered
it with hot coals, and left the beans to bake; for there never was a
better place,--that is, to give them the right flavor.
The boys could not leave till this important operation was performed;
when, finding the mill was in motion, they concluded to go there, and
invite Uncle Seth to supper, and, after having a swim, and a sail on
the raft, escort him to Mrs. Sumerford's. The mill had not yet ceased
to be a novelty; and they loved dearly to watch the grain as it dropped
from the hopper into the shoe, and from the shoe into the hole in the
upper stone.
It was also a great source of amusement to go up into the head of the
mill, and hear it crack, and feel it jar and quiver when the wind blew
fresh, and put their hands on the shaft as it revolved. They were
more disposed to this quiet pastime, from the fact that they had been
prohibited the use of powder and lead for the present.
When Harry, Alex, and Enoch came home, nothing was said about the
bean-pot, though it was hard work for Mrs. Sumerford, and especially
for the girls, to hold in.
"Come, mother," said Harry, "we're raving hungry: ain't you going to
give us any supper?"
"I should have had supper on the table when you came, but Mr. Seth's
coming: the boys have gone after him, and I knew you would want to eat
with him."
It was not long before they all came in; and after putting the dishes
on the table, and other provisions, Mrs. Sumerford took from the Dutch
oven the biscuits, a custard pudding she had baked from a kettle, and
then, placing a bean-pot in the middle of the table, exclaimed with an
air of ill-concealed triumph,--
"There! Harry, Elick, Enoch, look at that pot, and tell me where you
suppose it came from."
They examined it with great attention; and, the more they looked, the
more their wonder grew.
"It was made by somebody in this place, of course," said Alex; "because
nobody has been here to bring it, and nobody could go from here to get
it. I guess Mr. Honeywood made it, because he's lived in Baltimore
where they make such things."
"Guess, all of you; and, when any one guesses right, I'll say yes."
"I," said Enoch, "guess Mr. Holt made it, 'cause he came from one of
the oldest settlements, where they have every thing; and he made the
millstones."
Harry, who had been examining it all the while, thought he recognized
Uncle Seth's handiwork in the inscription, and said,--
"I think, as Elick does, it must have been made here, because there's
no intercourse betwixt us and other people; and no regular potter would
have made it that shape; it would have been higher and straighter, like
some I saw at Baltimore when we went after the salt: so I guess Uncle
Seth made it."
"Come, Mr. Blanchard, it's your turn now."
"I guess little Sammy here made it."
This assertion raised a roar of laughter; and, when it subsided, Mrs.
Sumerford said,--
"Yes; Sammy made it."
"O mother!" cried Harry, "you needn't try to make us believe that,
because it's impossible."
Sam had ever been so full of mischief, that it was new experience for
him to receive commendation from his brothers; but now it was given
him with a liberality amply sufficient to remunerate him for its lack
in the past. A proud boy he was that evening; but he bore his honors
modestly, and his face was redder than the surface of the pot on which
he had bestowed so much labor.
When the cover was removed, much to the surprise of Mrs. Sumerford, it
was found that the pot had not lost any portion of its contents.
"Why, I expected to find these beans dry,--most of the juice filtered
out,--'cause it wasn't glazed; but I don't see but it's about as tight
as an iron pot, though, to be sure, I rubbed it with wax and tallow,
and dredged flour over it."
"That pot," said Mr. Seth, "is very thick,--as thick again as one a
potter would make,--was made of good clay, quite well worked, and hard
baked; and it is no wonder that it would not let any thing as thick as
the bean-juice through it. Good potter's ware, if it isn't glazed, will
hold water a long time: it won't leak fast enough to drop; it will hold
milk longer still; and after a while the pores will become filled up,
and 'twill glaze itself, especially if anybody helps it with wax as you
have. I wish every woman in this Run had plenty of earthen dishes, pots
and pans, if they were not one of them glazed."
"If there's so little difference, why ain't the unglazed just about as
good?"
"Because you can't keep 'em so clean: after a while, the unglazed ware
gets soaked full of grease, butter, milk, or whatever you put in it,
and becomes rancid; you can't get it out, and it sours and taints
whatever you put in it: that bean-pot will after a while; but, when
ware is glazed, nothing penetrates, and you can clean it with hot
water, scald it sweet. There's another trouble with ware that is not
glazed: if you put water in it, and heat it on the fire, the water
swells the inside, and the fire shrinks the outside; and it is apt to
crack."
"Uncle Seth, you said, when we made the dishes down to the river, that
we made brick. What is brick?" asked Sam.
"It's made of clay and sand worked together; and this brick mortar is
put into a mould that makes each brick about seven and a half inches
long, and three and a half inches wide, and two and a half inches
thick; then they are dried and burnt hard in a kiln; and in old settled
places they build houses of 'em, chimneys, ovens, and fireplaces: they
don't make chimneys of wood and clay, and fireplaces of any stone that
comes to hand, as we do."
"Did you ever see a house made of brick?"
"Yes, a good many. Israel and I made and burnt a kiln of bricks, and
had enough to make a chimney, fireplace, and oven, in our house where
we used to live; and, if this terrible war is ever over, I mean to make
brick, build a frame house, and put a good brick chimney, fireplace,
and oven, in it. Israel's wife misses her oven very much."
"I never had an oven, nor saw one; but I've heard of 'em, and I expect
they are good things. I think a Dutch oven is a great thing for us
wilderness-folks; but I suppose the one you tell of is better," said
Mrs. Sumerford.
"I guess it is better. Why, Mrs. Sumerford, if you had a brick oven,
you could put a pot of beans, twice as many biscuits as you've got in
that Dutch oven, a custard, and an Indian pudding, and ever so many
pies, in it all at once, and shut up the oven, and then have your
fireplace all clear to boil meat, fry doughnuts or pork, or any thing
you wanted to do."
"It must be a great privilege to be able to do so many things at once:
I can't boil and bake more than one thing at a time now, except beans
or potatoes, because I have to bake in a kettle."
"If you had a brick oven, you could bake a pumpkin, or a coon, or
beaver, or joint of meat, or a spare-rib. Why, by heating the oven
once, you could bake victuals enough to last a week; and then, any
thing baked in a brick oven is as good again as when it is baked in
iron. These beans wouldn't have been half so good if they'd been baked
in an iron pan set into the Dutch oven or a kettle, because that place
in the hearth is what you may call an oven."
"What kind of moulds do the potters in the settlements have to make
their things of?" asked Sammy; "or do they make 'em in holes in the
ground or on a basket?"
"No, indeed! they make 'em on a wheel."
"Oh, do tell me about it, Uncle Seth! tell me all you know."
"That won't take long. What is called a potter's wheel means not only a
wheel, but a good many more things with it; but they all go by the name
of the potter's wheel.
"In the first place, there's a rough bench made; and then there's an
iron spindle goes through this bench, and not far from the bottom is
a crank; and below this crank, about three inches from the lower end,
a wheel is put on it as big over as the bottom of a wash-tub, with
a gudgeon at the end that goes into a socket in a timber. Upon the
other end that comes up about a foot above the bench, a screw-thread is
cut, and a round piece of hard-wood plank is screwed on the top of the
spindle about a foot over; on this the potter puts his lump of clay,
and smashes it down hard to make it stick fast.
"There's a treadle fixed to this crank on the spindle, just as there is
to your mother's flax-wheel. The potter puts his foot on this, sets the
clay whirling round, sticks his thumb into it and his fingers on the
outside, and makes it any shape he wants. After the vessel, whatever it
may be, is made, he takes off the finger-marks, and shapes it inside
and out more to his mind, with little pieces of wood cut just the shape
he wants; then takes it off the wheel, and puts it away to dry."
"Does it take him a good while to make a pot?" asked Harry.
"No, indeed! he'd make a pot as large as that bean-pot in five minutes,
and less too. A potter'd make a thousand of four-inch pots in a day.
In their kilns they burn thousands of pieces according to size, of all
kinds at once; as it don't take much longer, nor is it any more work,
to burn a thousand pieces than two hundred."
"That isn't much like me, two or three days making one pot," said Sammy.
"Sometimes, instead of having a crank on the spindle, they put a pulley
on it, and have the wheel on the floor, and a band run from this big
wheel to the pulley; but then it takes another hand to turn the big
wheel."
"O Uncle Seth! how much you do know, don't you?"
"I don't know much about pottery, Sammy, because it's not my business;
but I've seen a little of it, and it's the most interesting work to see
a man doing, that I ever looked at. I've seen their kilns, and seen
them bake their ware, but it was a good many years ago: so you must not
take all I say for gospel, 'cause I may have forgotten. I always take
notice of what I see, because sometimes it might be a benefit. I've
taken more notice of brickmakers and masons: I can make brick; I think
Israel and myself could build a chimney, between us, and make an oven
and a fireplace. It wouldn't be like one made by a mason, but would
answer the purpose, and be a great comfort here in the woods."
"We don't know any thing," said Mrs. Sumerford; "and no wonder we
don't, here in the woods with wild beasts and wild Indians."
If our young readers will call to mind that these frontier people had
never seen many of the most common conveniences of daily life, nor
witnessed any of the usual mechanical employments, they will perceive
at once how intensely interesting the conversation of Uncle Seth must
have been to this family-circle, and also how much mankind can dispense
with and yet be happy.
To no one of the circle was it more absorbing than to Sammy, who longed
to know more about the matter, and asked what the glazing was made of,
and how they put it on.
"As I told you once before, my lad, I don't know much about that;
because it's one of their secrets that they don't care to let folks
know, though I've seen some put it on. When I was a boy, and lived with
my grandfather in Northfield, Mass., afore we went into the woods, I've
seen an old English potter by the name of Adams make a kind of glaze
that's on your mother's milk-pan. He used to take lead, and heat it
red-hot till he made a great scum come on it, which he would skim off
till he burnt it all into dross; then he pounded that all fine, and
mixed it with water, clay, and a little sand, about as thick as cream,
and poured it into the things he wanted to glaze, rinsed it round, and
then turned it out; sometimes he put it on with a brush. What little
water there was would soak into the ware, and the lead would be on the
outside; then he put 'em into the kiln, and started the fire. When the
pots got red-hot the lead would melt; and I s'pose the sand melted some
too, and run all over the inside, and made the glaze. I don't know as
I've got it just right, but that's as near as I can recollect; and I
know I'm right about the lead.
"He said that in England they flung a lot of salt into the kiln to
glaze some kinds of ware; but he didn't, and his glaze was just like
that on your mother's pan."
"What an awful sin," said Mrs. Sumerford, "to burn up salt!"
"Oh, what a worse sin," said Harry, "to burn up lead! I should rather
go without pots and pans all the days of my life: I'm sure there are
ash and beech whorls enough in the woods to make bowls of."
"Indeed," said Mr. Seth, "salt and lead are not such scarce articles
in the settlements as they are amongst us, I can tell you."
Some who read these pages may think these boys to be very much inferior
to themselves, and be almost inclined to pity them; but are you sure,
that, considering the advantages both parties have had, they may not
be far your superiors? Notwithstanding all your advantages, is it not
probable, that, turn you right out in the world, you would either beg
or starve?
But turn one of them out into the woods, with a rifle, tomahawk, flint
and steel, and I would risk him: he would do neither.