Page:Henry Ford's Own Story.djvu/77

 BACK TO DETROIT 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