Page:Henry Ford's Own Story.djvu/36

 his search by inquiring for the boy in Detroit's machine shops.

He spoke to the foreman and took Henry outside. There was an argument. William Ford, backed by the force of parental authority, declared sternly that the place for Henry was in school. Henry, with two days experience in a real iron works, hotly declared that he'd never go back to school, not if he was licked for it.

"What's the good of the old school, anyhow? I want to learn to make steam engines," he said. In the end William Ford saw the futility of argument. He must have been an unusually reasonable father, for the time and place. It would have been a simple matter to lead Henry home by the ear and keep him there until he ran away again, and in 1878 most Michigan fathers in his situation would have done it.

"Well, you know where your home is any time you want to come back to it," he said finally, and went back to the farm.

Henry was now definitely on his own resources. With urgent need for that extra dollar a week weighing more heavily on his mind every day, he spent his evenings searching for night work. Before the time arrived to pay his second week's board he had found a jeweler who was willing to pay him two dollars a week for four hours work every night.

The arrangement left Henry with a dollar a