BACK TO DETROIT
Mrs. Ford's opinion was now shared by the whole Greenfield neighborhood
as soon as it learned Ford's intention of leaving his fine, paying farm
and moving to Detroit to work in a machine shop.
"You had this notion once before, you know, when you were a youngster,"
his father reminded him. "I thought you'd made up your mind to stay
here, where you can make a good living and have some peace and comfort."
He listened to his son's explanation of the possibilities in a
self-propelling gasoline engine and he shook his head.
"I guess you can build it if anybody can, but you can't ever tell about
these inventions. Looks to me you'd better stick to a good farm, where
you're your own boss, and there's always plenty in the cupboard whatever
happens, instead of going off to a city job. You may build that
contrivance of yours and then again you may not, and look how you'll be
living in the meantime."
But Henry was firm, with a determination which is called obstinacy when
it goes with failure and great will power when it is coupled with
success. He was going to the city. That settled it.
After her first protest Mrs. Ford accepted the situation and set herself
with what philosophy she might to packing her linen and wrapping the
furniture. She had no great interest in the gasoline engine--machinery
in general was to her merely something greasy and whirring, to hold her
skirts away from--but if Henry was going to Detroit, of course she was
going, too, and she might as well be cheerful about it.
The rosy, teasing country girl who had kept Henry Ford from his beloved
machines nearly five years before by her laughing refusal to choose
between her suitors, had developed into a cheerful, capable little
housewife--the kind of woman whose place is in the home because there
she does her best work.
She could never invent a gasoline engine, but she was an ideal person to
take care of Henry Ford while he did it, to keep the house clean and
comfortable, cook good meals, cheer him a bit when he was depressed and
never have "nerves." She went briskly to work and in no time she had
packed away the thousand articles that meant home to her and they stood
wrapped, crated, labeled, ready to move to Detroit.
Meantime Ford had arranged for the lease of the farm and for the storage
of the furniture until he should have found a house in the city. Mrs.
Ford was going there with him, and they would live in a boarding house
until he got a job. On the last morning when he picked up the telescope
bags, ready to start to the station, his wife went over to the house for
the last time to see that everything was snug and safe to leave.
Then she came into the parlor where he was waiting and looked around the
bare room stripped of its bright Brussels carpets, lace curtains and
shiny furniture.
"Well, we'll come back some day, won't we," she said, "when the gasoline
engine is built?"
She had spoken for the first time a phrase they were to repeat
frequently, with every accent of expectation, hope, discouragement and
irony, during the next ten years, "When the gasoline engine is built!"
A crowd of their friends gathered at the station to say good-by. With an
intention of being tactful, they avoided any mention of Henry's purpose
in leaving Greenfield.
"Sorry to lose you, Ford. Hope you'll be coming back before long," they
said, and he knew the neighborhood had learned of his intention to
invent something and thought him suddenly become a fool.
As soon as they reached Detroit and found a boarding house where he
could leave his wife he started out to get a job. He wanted one where he
could learn something about electricity. So far his knowledge of it was
purely theoretical, gained from reading and thinking. Electric lights
had come to Detroit since he left it; the Edison Electric Lighting and
Power Company had established three power stations there. He asked
nothing better than a chance to work in one of them.
Charles Gilbert, manager of the plants, was having a hard time that
morning. By one of those freaks of Fate which must be left out of any
fiction plot because they are too improbable, two of his engines had
chosen that day to break down simultaneously. One of the engineers who
had been responsible had been summarily discharged; the others were
working on the engine in the main plant, and one of the sub-stations was
entirely out of commission, with no prospect of getting to work on it
until the next day.
Into this situation Henry Ford walked, and asked for a job.
"He looked to me like any tramp engineer," Charles Gilbert says to-day.
"A young fellow, not very husky-looking--more of a slight, wiry build.
You wouldn't have noticed him at all in a crowd. He talked like a
steady, capable fellow, but if he had come in on any other day I'd have
said we couldn't use him. As it was, I thought I might as well give him
a chance."
He listened to Ford--looked him over.
"Know anything about steam engines?" he asked him. Ford said he did.
"Well, the engine at sub-station A quit this morning. I got a couple of
mechanics working on it, but they don't seem to be doing much. Get out
there and see what you can do, and let me know."
"All right, sir," Ford replied, and went. It was then about ten in the
morning. Gilbert, busy with the troubles in the main plant, heard no
more from sub-station A until 6 o'clock that evening. Then a small boy
arrived with a message: "Engine running O. K.--Ford."
Gilbert went out to the sub-station. The engine, in perfect order, was
roaring in the basement. On the first floor the dynamos were going at
full speed. His worries with sub-station A were over. He went down to
the engine and found Ford busy with an oil can.
"Want the job of night engineer here?" Gilbert asked him. "Pays
forty-five a month."
"Go to work right now if you say so," Ford assured him.
"All right. I'll have another man here to relieve you at six in the
morning. Come down to the office some time to-morrow and I'll put your
name on the payroll."
In one day Ford had got the very opportunity he wanted--a job where he
could study electricity at first hand.
An hour later Mrs. Ford, who had spent the day drearily unpacking trunks
and putting the telescope bags under the bed in a hopeless attempt to
make a boarding-house bedroom homelike, received an enthusiastic note.
"Got fine job already. Working all night. Go to bed and don't worry.
Everything is settled splendidly.--Henry."
He had forgotten to mention that his wages were forty-five dollars a
month.