In time men learned more about clays and how to mix and form and bake them, until now, as you know, pottery that is beautiful and serviceable is made all over the world, and in great factories china and porcelain made of the finest clays are moulded, decorated and fired for our use. It will be interesting to you sometime to see one of the factories where such ware is made, but although it is so fine and smooth and perfect and so useful to us, I doubt if the workmen who make it have half the pleasure in their task that the first potters had in moulding their rough cooking utensils and clay pipes. So I am glad to think that although you may never be able to make china, you can work in clay as the Indians used to do, for that you will enjoy far more. [Illustration: FIG. 60] [Illustration: FIG. 61] Of course you would like to make something that you can use, something that will not crumble and break like the things you modelled in kindergarten. To do this you will need to get a clay which can be baked--or fired, as potters express it--and you must have a clay that is so mixed or arranged as to bake well in the kiln (or pottery oven) to which you are going to send it. If you live near a pottery where flower pots or gray stoneware are made you can probably arrange to buy your clay there, and after your pottery is finished have it baked at the same place. The clay that is used at a stoneware pottery is arranged so as to fire at a much greater heat than the flower-pot clay, and so the ware is stronger, but the flower-pot ware will be strong enough for the things you will make. Although this clay is gray before it is baked, it comes from the kiln a beautiful Indian red. [Illustration: FIG. 62] You will not need many tools beside your own fingers and thumbs. One boxwood modelling tool the shape shown in Fig. 60, and another with more flattened and rounded ends (see Fig. 61) will be enough to begin with. These you can buy at a kindergarten-supply store. Later you may need the sheet-steel tools shown in Figs. 62 and 63. Dealers in hardware sell the sheet steel, and these tools can easily be cut from it--doubtless the dealer will do it for you. [Illustration: FIG. 63] Buy fifteen or twenty pounds of clay at a time, ready mixed if possible. If it comes to you in the dry state--in rock-like pieces--you must first pound it to a powder. This you can do out of doors by spreading the lumps of clay on a paper laid on flat stone and pounding them with a smaller stone, or, if it must be done in the house, spread the clay on a strong bench or table and pound it with an old flatiron. It is now ready for soaking. Put a little water in an earthen crock and add the powdered clay to it, mixing it with your hand and adding clay until it is the right consistency to mould. If you find you have too much water, pour off some after the clay is well mixed, and if it is still too moist, spread it on a board in the air until it has dried out sufficiently.