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.
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.