“Now I’ll make you a pitcher, missie,” said the good-natured man, and with the same kind of clay, just rounding it a bit and giving a cunning little pinch to form the spout, he made quite a pretty jug.
“Where’s the handle?” asked Charley.
“Oh, that can’t go on yet, sir! We must wait till the jug is dry, for we could not press it tight enough to make it stick.”
Bread-pans and washing-pans are made in exactly the same way as flower-pots, being moulded by the hand into different forms. When the pots and pans leave the potter’s wheel they are taken, as we saw, to dry, and great care is required to keep them at a certain heat, for if the frost gets to them now they crack and are useless.
“Here’s a comical little pot!” exclaimed Charley, holding up a wee one.
“We call them long Toms,” said Mr. Sands. “They are mostly used by nursery-gardeners, because they take so little room.”
“How long do they take to dry?” asked Mary, looking longingly at her little jug.
“About a day; so we will leave your jug with the others, and go to the kiln to see how they will be burnt to-morrow.”
The kiln was round, with a big doorway, called a wicket.
The pots and pans are put inside, great care being taken that they should not touch each other, or they would stick like loaves of bread. Pans are first glazed with a mixture of blue or red lead. The fire is burning below, and there are holes to allow the flames to pass upwards amongst the pottery. When the kiln is full the wicket is bricked up and daubed over with road-mud.