“Saw young Edsel did his summer job real well. Every machine has its brass plaque—everyone identified—nice and tidy. Good boy that!”
“Hey, did you notice he always carried a notebook, just like the Boss? Keeps jotting things into it, just like him, too.” Rudy took a swig of beer.
“Mr. Ford is proud of his boy. Rightly so. He’s a credit to him and his Missus,” Carl observed.
“You watch, someday that boy will surprise his proud Papa. Has a head on his shoulders, thinks for himself.” Stan admired the spindly youth who liked to work in the plant during his summer vacations.
“He don’t look down on nobody. Could, being son of big Boss!” said Peter. The men nodded in agreement.
Jimmy wiped his mouth. “I find the whole idea rather astonishing.”
“What?” Fritz asked.
“Henry Ford, letting the boy work, like one of his men, no favors shown.”
“That’s because Edsel will be boss someday. Good, learn what it takes now, to work for a living. Being rich born not teach you how hard that is.”
“Quite right, Fritz.” Jimmy acknowledged the older man’s opinion.
Jane, helping Hannah clear, heard her murmur to herself. “Dat’s American way, Mr. Jimmy Englishman, everybody equal.”
“In one way, I agree with Jimmy,” Johann looked at Fritz. “Now that Edsel has graduated, why not let him go get himself a fine college education—the money sure is there, so why not? Why have him join the company?”
“Why? Because the Boss is getting his boy ready to run his Ford Motor Company one day! Teach him more here what he needs to know than fancy college full of other rich sons!”
“Heard Edsel has himself a girl,” John announced.
“Already? So young?” Fritz exclaimed.
“Good for him!” Stan approved.
“Okay with the Boss?” Rudy asked.
“Oh, nothing serious,” John chuckled, “still only good clean fun.”
“Well, soon the boy need to marry—important we have sons, make Mr. Ford happy grandpapa—know his company then safe for always.” Fritz pushed back his chair, rose, led the procession of men to the parlor.
Jane, clearing the table, wondered as she often did, at the intense interest Henry Ford’s workers had for anything that concerned him, like a father with many children—they felt they were a part of him. Everything he did, his very thoughts were a part of their lives. That this man’s children numbered more than fourteen thousand workers, as well as the astounding sum of Model T owners, Ford dealers, and assembly shop personnel across America as well as foreign lands, made this so intimate interest in the boss of this vast empire that much more beguiling.
Jane was becoming a “Ford wife” and it pleased her. This amazing man, who had elevated the common man to the equal mobility of his superiors, was now about to change the concept of quantity production for all time, had captured her imagination. She, whose need for limitless horizons had propelled her across the sea, bound her to an unloved stranger, felt a longing kinship with one whose dream had become reality. Each evening, she rushed to be settled in her corner, ready to listen—fascination growing as the Ford men talked.
“Today overhead wheel line move so fast, make you hurry up so don’t miss something, ’til you feel like machine, too,” announced Peter, his tone tinged with guilt for voicing what might be construed as a criticism.
Jimmy struck a match against the heel of his boot. “Joke going around, your boys on the line drop a wrench, bend down to pick it up—three Ts have passed you by.”
“Like I said, if this goes on, monkeys will wear our badges, punch time cards and we? We’ll have to move to Flint!” Stan was not joking.
John, ever the defender of his hero, answered him. “You forget Henry Ford is a mechanic. He has always respected his men. And what about Couzens and Sorenson? Even Avery. You really believe, Stan, such men would allow inferior workmanship to increase production?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Well, I don’t!”
“Have it your way, John,” Stan murmured, not wanting to get into a fight.
John, opening his paper, changed direction if not the subject of their evening’s discussion.
“Fritz, tomorrow put down your nimble thimble, come down from your eagle nest and I’ll show you how we now turn out crankcases. You’ve got to see this. Right, Jimmy?”
Fritz put down his paper. “Another new thing?”
“You bet … and it’s fantastic! On an overhead automatic conveyer system—they now go direct from the pressed steel department to the paint tank, onto the drying ovens—that before, took up miles of floor space … time and men at hard labor.”
Zoltan sneezed, excused himself, adding, “Everything dangling above the heads—hope that’s safe.”
“I say, we should put the whole car assembly on a continuous line!”
“John, that’s plain crazy!” Rudy blew a smoke ring. John shrugged.
“Heard today a man out West has invented a hand pump that can pump gasoline into a gas tank. They said he calls it a ‘Filling Station’ because it has wheels, can be rolled right to a curb.” Johann looked around for a reaction and got one from Stan.
“A curb? How many towns do you know that even have streets?”
“Not a bad idea, though,” Fritz observed.
“Now everybody’s inventing something. There’s a company offering T owners a Speed-O-Meter. Sells for twelve dollars. Who can afford that?”
“And what about the one offering gasoline gages,” Rudy sounded excited. “Can you beat that? If you own one of those, you don’t have to get your ruler out of the toolbox—make your girl get out to pull up the front seat to get to the tank and measure to see what you got left in there!”
Johann laughed. “There’s even a man who swears he’s invented an alarm that will ring when the Henry is about to go dry!”
Jane wondered just how many more names one little automobile could be known by.
“Yes, I hear there have been letters on that.” Carl agreed.
“There are letters on everything! Evangeline saw one from a lady in Virginia, who complained that when one squeezed the bulb on Lizzie’s horn it sounded like a duck with a bad case of catarrh!”
Everyone laughed, except Jane, who didn’t know what catarrh meant.
Carl turned to John. “So, you saw the fair Evangeline!”
“Hey, Missus Jane—you better watch your fella! He’s associating with dynamite!”
“Quit it, Rudy.” John was not amused.
“Yes, boys—no teasing John’s Missus. She still new—not knows our joking way.” Fritz sounded stern.
Silenced, the men took up their evening’s reading—Jane, her darning forgotten, was trying to digest what she had heard.
“Hannah?”
It was Friday, Noodle Day, and Jane was rolling dough into thick sausages, ready for cutting.
“Yes, child, you got trouble?” Hannah turned from the sink.
“Oh, no, not the noodles. I just wondered if you know an Evangeline?”
Hannah dried her hands on her apron. Her usual effusive verbal output reduced to a solitary “Sure,” which hung in the air as though looking for a place to land safely.