"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.
"He said that in England they flung a lot of salt into the kiln to glaze some kinds of ware; but he didn't, and his glaze was just like that on your mother's pan."
"What an awful sin," said Mrs. Sumerford, "to burn up salt!"
"Oh, what a worse sin," said Harry, "to burn up lead! I should rather go without pots and pans all the days of my life: I'm sure there are ash and beech whorls enough in the woods to make bowls of."