top of the bag with drawing strings as follows: Turn in a hem three-quarters of an inch wide at the top of the bag and baste it. Hem it around neatly with the lavender sewing silk and make a casing for the drawing strings to run through, by putting a row of backstitching a little over a quarter of an inch above the bottom of the hem. There should be two little holes made on each side of the bag on the outside of the hem between the stitched seam and the bottom of the hem. They are put there so that the ribbon drawing strings can run into the casing. You can make them with an ivory or metal piercer called a stiletto, or any other tool that has a sharp round point. The neatest way to finish these holes is to sew the edges over and over with a needleful of sewing silk. Half a yard of narrow ribbon should be allowed for each drawing string. Thread it in a bodkin, or ribbon needle, which is run into one of the holes at the side of the bag, through the casing at the lower part of the hem, all around the bag and out of the hole beside the one where it went in. Now tie the ends of this drawing string together, thread the other one through the bodkin and run it into a hole on the opposite side of the bag, through the casing all around the bag and out of the little hole beside the one where it went in. The ends of this piece are also tied, and then the bag is done. [Illustration: FIG. 56] Clay Working CHAPTER VI CLAY WORKING Have you ever noticed how, when it rains, one road will dry at once, and on another your footprints will hold the water like a cup for hours? Do you know the reason for it? The first road is sandy, and so the water filters through the coarse particles and soon disappears. The other is mostly of clay, which is close and fine, and after your foot made that little hollow it was doubtless half baked by the sun so that it became like natural pottery. You probably know all this, and have felt with your own fingers the difference between the sand, in which you have built forts and dug with your shovel in the summer and played with on the kindergarten sand table in winter, and the soft, smooth clay that you have formed into bird's nests, eggs and other things in kindergarten. Years and years ago, before our great-great-great-grandfathers were even thought of, some man noticed the same thing that you do--that one part of the earth held water for hours, while it disappeared so quickly from other parts--and it set him thinking. Why not make a bowl in which he could carry water when he was travelling or hunting in dry places? This is the way, some wise men think, the making of pottery began. Cups and small vessels could easily be moulded from small lumps of clay, but large pieces--great bowls and jars--it was soon found would have to be formed in a mould. Shallow baskets, pieces of gourd or fruit rind, were the moulds in which these large pots were started.