Page:Henry Ford's Own Story.djvu/9

 BY ROSE WILDER LANE

years ago a few farmers' families near Greenfield, Michigan, heard that there was another baby at the Fords'—a boy. Mother and son were doing well. They were going to name the boy Henry.

Twenty-six years later a little neighborhood on the edge of Detroit was amused to hear that the man Ford who had just built the little white house on the corner had a notion that he could invent something. He was always puttering away in the old shed back of the house. Some times he worked all night there. The neighbors saw the light burning through the cracks.

Twelve years ago half a dozen men in Detroit were actually driving the Ford automobile about the streets. Ford had started a small factory, with a dozen mechanics, and was buying material. It was freely predicted that the venture would never come to much.

Last year—January, 1914—America was startled by an announcement from the Ford factory that ten million dollars would be divided