A Killer Collection Read Online Free PDF

See, I've turned them on the wheel but they haven't been in the
kiln yet. They'll dry out for a bit and then go in the fire for a good, long
roastin'. Come on in the house and I'll show you some old pieces."
    Molly trailed after the spry older
man on a gravel path that meandered behind the barn. Tucked neatly into the
woods, their unpainted house looked as though it had always belonged in the
copse of trees.
    Inside, Molly noticed that the
Burles lived a simple life. Their sparse furniture was easily twenty years old
and the rusty hue of the shaggy carpet hinted that it too had been around for
some time. Pulling pots off of a nearby bookshelf, C. C. showed her a jug with
grapes on it that his grandmother had made out of rolled balls of clay and
applied one by one to the piece that his grandfather had turned hours earlier.
Afterwards, she had incised some leaves and curled vines around the grapes to
create a beautiful and delicate design.
    Molly handled the piece gently,
admiring its form, lightness, and the artistry of the grapevine.
    "Can it hold water?" she
asked.
    'Tight as Noah's Ark," C. C.
answered. "After all, the Burles made this stuff for people in these parts
to use every day of their lives. Local people made butter and cream in our
chums and stored all kinds of foodstuffs in these crocks. I’m still tryin’ to
get used to the idea that people are buyin’ my pottery just to look at it.”
    "What's the history of this
piece?" Molly asked, holding up a piece that looked like two jugs stacked
on top of each other with spouts sticking out in opposite directions.
    "That there is a monkey jug.
See, you put liquor in its bottom half and a water chaser in the top. These are
actually two jugs fired on top of one another so they have separate
compartments. Now, you get yerself a nice cup, pour some whiskey from this
bottom section"—C. C. tapped the spout of the bigger half of the
jug—"then turn it around"— he swiveled the jug so that the opposite
spout on the top half faced forward—"then add yer water. You've got a
cocktail party all in one place. Me, I like how the whiskey half is so much
bigger than the water half."
    Molly laughed as she admired the
jug's speckled glaze. It looked exactly like the glaze on the pieces C. C. had
put out for sale this morning.
    "Could you tell me more about
the family recipe?" she asked, pointing at the glaze.
    "Now, that's fun. You get out
your mixer and add one part powdered glass (we have a machine to break it up),
one part ash from burned wood, and one part slip."
    "Slip?"
    "Slip is some broken
greenware mixed with water."
    "So you blend all that stuff
and end up with greenish icing for your cake?"
    "That's right. We keep it
stored in a big barrel and dip a piece right into it. Gotta make sure there's
no slip on the bottom or that pot will stick like glue to the kiln floor when
it gets fired."
    Molly examined a few more pieces
on his shelf. She could see that even though the recipe for glaze was the same,
each piece had a unique pattern of flecks, blotches, and drips. She picked up a
beautiful crock that had a swirl decoration in green and beige.
    "How do you make the glaze
into that swirl pattern?"
    "That's not the glaze,"
said C. C. with a smile. "You’re lookin’ at two different colors of clay.
The secret to makin' swirl is some- thin' I only share with other potters. You
get yourself a wheel and I'll teach you."
    "I think that would be
wonderful," Molly said, and she meant it, but her few attempts to make
pottery were disasters. Her finished products were wobbly, without the
slightest hint of symmetry, and completely unimaginative.
    When the tour concluded, Molly's
head was stuffed with new details about the Burle family and their pottery. She
was touched by the way C. C. handled each piece with infinite tenderness, by
the pride he took in carrying on his family trade, and his excitement in
teaching a new generation of potters the traditional methods handed down by