"So you put Tony's name on it: you loved your little mate, Sammy."
"Yes, marm: I miss him all the whole time. I never shall think so much of anybody as I did of him. I like all the boys, but I loved Tony. If he was here, he'd help me: we should have made a pot for our two mothers; and 'cause he ain't here, I made this for you."
"You are a bonnie bairn, an' I trust your mither'll nae ha' occasion to greet for you as I maun for Tony."
Sammy could now make earthen vessels with much greater facility. He had a good eye, and could make them without so much measuring as was at first necessary, and without making a model. All he had to do was to determine in his mind the size he would have the vessel, roll out his clay, and cut the sheet long enough to form a circle as large as the circumference of his vessel at its largest place, then cut it into strips, lapping some more and some less, as the sides flared or tapered; and, as he kept his measures of height, diameter, and the profiles of the sides, he soon learned to make a vessel of any size he wished.
When it was found that his ware would bear to be put on the fire to boil in, the women wished to use them in this manner; but there was nothing by which to hang them.
One day he was digging among the broken pottery under the shelving bank on the site of the old Indian village, and unearthed the upper half of a pot, the edge of the mouth rolled over, making a very broad flange. He took it to Mr. Honeywood, who told him that it was done by the Indian squaws to hold a withe to hang it over the fire by.
"I should think it would burn off."
"They put clay upon it, and watched it: if the clay fell off, put on more."
"Mr. Honeywood, how did you know so much about Indians? and how did you learn to talk Indian?"
"I learned to speak the language from two men in Baltimore, who had been prisoners with them a long time: of their customs I learned a great deal more from Wasaweela the Mohawk, with whom I hunted and camped a whole winter."