Henry Ford’s Own Story |
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IT was a hot, sultry day in the last of July, one of those Eastern summer days when the air presses heavily down on the stifling country fields, and in every farmyard the chickens scratch deep on the shady side of buildings, looking for cool earth to lie upon, panting.
This weather won t hold long," William Ford said that morning, giving the big bay a friendly slap and fastening the trace as she stepped over. "We d better get the hay under cover before night."
There was no sign of a cloud in the bright, hot sky, but none of the hired men disputed him. William Ford was a good farmer, thrifty and weather-wise. Every field of his 300-acre farm was well cared for, yielding richly every year; his cattle were fat and sleek, his big red barns the best filled in the neighborhood. He was not the man to let ten acres of good timothy-andclover hay get caught in a summer shower and spoil.
They put the big hay-rack on the wagon, threw in the stone water jugs, filled with cool water from the well near the kitchen door, and drove out to the meadow. One imagines them work ing there, lifting great forksful of the clover- scented hay, tossing them into the rack, where, on the rising mound, the youngest man was kept busy shifting and settling them with his fork. Grasshoppers whirred up from the winrows of the dried grass when they were disturbed, and quails called from the fence corners.
Now and then the men stopped to wipe the sweat from their foreheads and to take long swal lows from the water jugs, hidden, for coolness, under a mound of hay. Then, with a look at the sky, they took up their forks.
William Ford worked with the others, doing a good day s task with the best of them, and proud of it. He was the owner, and they were the hired men, but on a Michigan farm the meas ure of a man is the part he takes in man s work. In the cities, where men work against men, let them build up artificial distinctions; on the farm the fight is against nature, and men stand shoul der to shoulder in it. A dark cloud was coming up in the northwest, and every man s muscles leaped to the need for getting in the hay.
Suddenly they heard a clang from the great bell, hung high on a post in the home dooryard, and used only for calling in the men at dinner time or for some emergency alarm. Every man stopped. It was only 10 o'clock. Then they saw a fluttering apron at the barnyard gate, and William Ford dropped his fork.
"I ll go. Get in the hay !" he called back, already running over the stubble in long strides. The men stared a minute longer and then turned back to work, a little more slowly this time, with the boss gone. A few minutes later they stopped again to watch him riding out of the home yard and down the road, urging the little gray mare to a run.
"Going for Doc Hall," they surmised. They got in a few more loads of hay before the rain came, spattering in big drops on their straw hats and making a pleasant rustling on the thirsty meadows. Then they climbed into the half-filled rack and drove down to the big barn.
They sat idly there in the dimness, watching through the wide doors the gray slant of the rain. The doctor had come; one of the men unhitched his horse and led it into a stall, while another pulled the light cart under the shed. Dinner time came and passed. There was no call from the house, and they did not go in. Once in a while they laughed nervously, and remarked that it was a shame they did not save the last three loads of hay. Good hay, too, ran a full four tons to the acre.
About 2 o'clock in the afternoon the rain changed to a light drizzle and the clouds broke. Later William Ford came out of the house and crossed the soppy yard. He was grinning a little. It was all right, he said a boy. I believe they had up a jug of sweet cider from the cellar in honor of the occasion. I know that when they apologetically mentioned the spoiled hay he laughed heartily and asked what they supposed he cared about the hay.
"What're you going to call him, Ford?" one of the men asked him as they stood around the cider jug, wiping their lips on the backs of their hands.
"The wife's named him already Henry," he said.
"Well, he ll have his share of one of the finest farms in Michigan one of these days," they said, and while William Ford said nothing he must have looked over his green rolling acres with a pardonable pride, reflecting that the new boy- baby need never want for anything in reason.
Henry was the second son of William Ford and Mary Litogot Ford, his energetic, whole some Holland Dutch wife. While he was still in pinafores, tumbling about the house or making daring excursions into the barnyard, the strong hold of the dreadful turkey gobbler, his sister, Margaret, was born, and Henry had barely been promoted to real trousers, at the age of four, when another brother arrived.
Four babies, to be bathed, clothed, taught, loved and guarded from all the childish disasters to be encountered about the farm, might well be thought enough to fill any woman s mind and hands, but there were a thousand additional tasks for the mistress of that large household.
There was milk to skim, butter and cheese to make, poultry and garden to be tended, patch work quilts to sew, and later to fasten into the quilting frames and stitch by hand in herring bone or fan patterns. The hired hands must be fed twenty or thirty of them in harvesting time; pickles, jams, jellies, sweet cider, vinegar must be made and stored away on the cellar shelves. When the hogs were killed in the fall there were sausages, head-cheese, pickled pigs feet to prepare, hams and shoulders to be soaked in brine and smoked ; onions, peppers, popcorn to be braided in long strips and hung in the attic; while every day bread, cake and pies must be baked, and the house kept in that "apple-pie or der" so dear to the pride of the Michigan farmers women- folk.
All these tasks Mary Ford did, or superintended, efficiently, looking to the ways of her household with all the care and pride her husband had in managing the farm. She found time, too, to be neighborly, to visit her friends, care for one of them who fell ill, help any one in the little community who needed it. And always she watched over the health and manners of the children.
In this environment Henry grew. He was energetic, interested in everything, from the first. His misadventures in conquering the turkey gob bler would fill a chapter. When he was a little older one of the hired men would put him on the back of a big farm horse and let him ride around the barnyard, or perhaps he was allowed to carry a spiced drink of vinegar and water to the men working in the harvest field. He learned . every corner of the hay-mow, and had a serious inter view with his father over the matter of sliding down the straw-stacks. In the winters, wrapped in a knit muffler, with mittens of his mother s making on his hands, he played in the snow or spent whole afternoons sliding on the ice with his brothers.
Best of all he liked the "shop," where the black smith work for the farm was done and the sharp ening of tools. When the weather was bad out side his father or one of the men lighted the char coal in the forge and Henry might pull the bel lows till the fire glowed and the iron buried in it shone white-hot. Then the sparks flew from the anvil while the great hammer clanged on the metal, shaping it, and Henry begged to be al lowed to try it himself, just once. In time he was given a small hammer of his own.
So the years passed until Henry was 11 years old, and then a momentous event occurred small enough in itself, but to this day one of the keen est memories of his childhood.
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