STORY OF THE TIDDLY MOUSE-MAKER
There was once rather an extraordinary old ceramist who lived in the village of Buntingdowndale in the heart of England. Ceramics is the art of making pottery into tiles, or dishes, or small glazed figures.
What was unusual about him was that he only made mice. And they were not the ordinary kind either. Other potters in the village, and there were several, turned out birds or dogs, kittens or rabbits and many different kinds of animal, but this one made nothing but the most lifelike and enchanting little ceramic mice from morning until night.
He was a happy fellow who hummed to himself contentedly throughout the day as, with his clever fingers, he modelled mouse after mouse after mouse. In the evening he would put those that were dry into a special oven and let them bake overnight. Then the next day he would take them out, polish them, file off the rough edges and look at them lovingly before either setting them in the window of his shop in Buntingdowndale or sending them off up to London.
He probably knew more about mice and their ways than anyone else in the world, so that he was able almost to think like a mouse.
He had come to know them so well because he had mice in his workshop – not in a cage of course, but whole families of them who lived there behind the wainscoting and underneath the wooden floor.
They were quite used to him and since he did not keep a cat, they would come out from their homes and go about their business across the room, or sit up to have a chat together as though he were not there. Sometimes he felt he could almost understand what they were saying. Thus he came to have a great affection for them, copying them in all kinds of poses. He made them as he saw them, coloured brown, grey or white, but their ears were always of a delicate pink and nearly transparent.
But just because he was so fond of them and so knowledgeable, he was never wholly satisfied with the results of his work. Something he felt each time escaped him – some attitude of the body, or expression of their faces. Oh, he made them look worried all right, since he knew that no sensible mouse ever relaxed entirely, even when there was no cat in the house. For there were other things to upset them: terriers, birds of prey, not to mention stoats, weasels and foxes. Then there were traps set by people, and the everyday business of seeking out a living for their families and themselves.
And so the old gentleman’s mice always seemed to be peering slightly nervously over their shoulders. Yet he felt that there was something about mousedom that he had failed to capture. But every time he set about his work, he was hoping that this next one would result in the absolutely faultless or super mouse.
So the days passed; people came from far and near to buy his figures, for they thought them perfect. But the ceramist was beginning to wonder whether before it came his time to pass on, he would ever be able to make a completely one-hundred-per-cent, satisfying reproduction.
And then, out of the blue, something happened. Sometimes when one has had an ambition for a lifetime, worked hard and tried faithfully, one can brew up a magic moment when suddenly all things seem possible. It was not exactly like that with this potter. The strange thing was that the feeling came to him on a day when he had not planned to do any work at all. For there was to be an important wedding of the daughter of friends in Buntingdowndale, and of course he had been invited.
It turned out to be a very happy and gay affair indeed, lasting all day. Beginning with the marriage in the morning there was a large luncheon with many toasts in cider drunk to the bride and groom. After the happy pair had left, it was far too early to go home, so the potter with several of his cronies went to the village inn, The Cat and Mouse. He was particularly welcome there, for he had modelled the sign that hung over the door, in which the mouse was as large as the cat and the two were marching hand-in-hand and smiling cheerfully at one another. This idea, naturally, was quite absurd but it was so amusing and charmingly done that it had resulted in making the inn rather famous.
There, without regard to the clock, or the call of other duties, the friends continued to raise their glasses to the health and future happiness of the married couple, until to their great surprise the inn-keeper was compelled to announce closing time. Thereupon they rose and departed, each to his home in his own manner, with the ceramist finding it easier to float than to walk.
For he was feeling as though he weighed almost nothing, and he was exceptionally happy, joyful and contented.
The village street by lamplight had never looked more beautiful, nor the stars above brighter and it seemed to him that if he wished he could reach up and touch the moon. Some kind of enchantment was at work.
As he turned into the gate of his cottage he thought it was a pity to put such a feeling to bed and to sleep. And so instead of entering the door, he turned off and drifted down the path to his workshop which was at the bottom of the garden. There he switched on the lamps and, light as a feather, settled down at his pottery bench by the bins of different kinds and grades of clay that he used. Before his eyes swam his jars of paints and glazes in all hues, his brushes and his modelling knives. At the far end his electric oven with its knobs, switches and levers appeared to form itself into a face and figure with arms outstretched in invitation.
And thereupon the sensation came over him most intensely and the idea smote him like a stroke of lightning: Now! Now, this very moment, here tonight, this instant, I shall make my super mouse.
At last, at last! Everything that he ever seemed to have known about mice and the making of glazed ceramic figures, came together. And at that particular instant he felt he was the greatest ceramist the world had ever known, and that the mouse that he was about to make would be the most beautiful and perfect that anyone had ever seen.
His coat apparently removed itself without his aid. When he slipped the string of his potter’s apron over his head, it tied itself around his waist. And since his feet no longer needed to touch the ground, it was no effort at all for him to move quickly about his workshop.
He decided to use his favourite mixture – two parts of Copenhagen clay which he imported from Denmark, combined with one part from the banks of the Deedle, the brook that meandered through Buntingdowndale. This he moistened and worked together into a ball. Never had this part of the work gone so well.
With a singing in his heart he reflected upon what a wonderful artist he was and with the picture of this mouse in his mind, he began to model.
It was a sitting-up one upon which he had decided. It would be perched on its hindlegs with its two tiny paws held in front of its breast, clutching the end of its tail which would come winding out from beneath it, up around its side and over one arm.
That night his fingers were so thin and sensitive that he did not need any of his modelling knives, not even to etch the fine whiskers sprouting from its cheeks. For these he used his thumbnail. He was particularly proud of the ears. He knew that when glazed and fired, one would be able almost to see right through them, as he could see through the ears of the live ones who came to visit him.
‘What is art?’ he said to himself, and then answered, ‘Art is creation and I am a creator.’ And he felt even better and happier.
It was the same with the preparation for the painting and glazing. He had only to think about what he wanted and there it was. All his skill, knowledge, cunning and experience were brought into play here. One had to know exactly the right mixture of colours, so that when the clay emerged from the furnace, the heat would have baked it into exactly the proper shades.
This was to be a dark grey mouse when it was finished. He applied the paints lovingly and with care. The tiny upstanding ears would be grey outside and their shells the faintest shade of pink, the colour
