Forest Glen; or, The Mohawk's FriendshipKellogg, Elijah
General
Forest Glen; or, The Mohawk's Friendship
Kellogg, Elijah
Frontier and pioneer life -- Juvenile fiction; Quakers -- Juvenile fiction
"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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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