Page:Henry Ford's Own Story.djvu/110

. He had taken Mrs. Ford to Greenfield, where she would stay with her mother until the baby was born. After that one hysterical outburst on the night the automobile was finished, she had returned to her cheerful acceptance of his interest in the car. Indeed, she herself had become enthusiastic about its possibilities.

"You stay right here and keep your job with the Edison people," she said. "I'll be perfectly all right with mother, and maybe by the time I come back you'll have a company organized and a whole factory going, who knows? Only, mind you don't work too late at night, and promise you'll eat your meals regular."

Ford promised, but when he returned to the dark little house at night and faced the task of building a fire and cooking supper for himself it seemed to him a bigger job than building the automobile had been. He heated some coffee on the gasoline stove, burned some bread into a semblance of toast, and scrambled a few eggs. Then he spread a newspaper on the kitchen table, set the frying-pan on it, and managed to make a meal.

Naturally about midnight he grew hungry. He came into the kitchen, looked at the cold, greasy frying-pan, still setting on the kitchen table, remembered that he was out of bread, and thought of an all-night lunch wagon that stood near substation A, where sometimes he bought a cup of coffee when he was working there.