“Amen!” Zoltan crossed himself. “Stan, are you driving me home?”
“Sure. Anyone else want a ride?”
“You sure Serafina won’t mind?” Peter asked, hoping Stan would be willing to go as far as Hamtramck.
“She’s a good sport about me chauffeuring. Don’t take this the wrong way, my friends, but don’t you think it’s time you got yourselves a motor?”
“Next year, maybe. I have my eye on our Coupelet.”
“Swanky, Zoltan. Real swanky. Going courting?”
“Maybe, Johann. Just maybe.”
“Fritz, what about you? Hannah would love it!”
“Ja, but first I spend my money to get her a talking machine—but don’t tell her. Ever since Mr. Bell invented that, she has been dreaming of someday we have one.”
“Serafina’s father of course has had one for sometime. Now he complains to me daily that because I haven’t installed one yet, he can’t ring over to check on Serafina’s delicate condition. Hey, John, I hear your Missus is again in the family way. Congratulations!” The others joined in. “Know when?”
“Jane thinks early April … but one never knows.”
“I’m not convinced they are as necessary as everyone claims they are,” Fritz mused.
“What?” Heads snapped in his direction.
“Just a lot of unnecessary disturbance!”
“Fritz—what are you talking about?”
“Talking telephones. Fine maybe for business but inside a home, why?”
“Well, if you get one just so your father-in-law can ring through, I’m sure Stan will agree with you!” John laughed.
“I’ve told you once, John—and I’ll tell you again—thank your lucky stars yours isn’t on your neck!”
“What about all those look-alike brothers of his that play in that band, they give you trouble too, Stan?”
“I’m so busy keeping my nose clean with the father, I let those uncles fiddle all they want! Okay … Zoltan? You ready? … Anyone else who’s coming with me … go get your wife.”
Later, walking home, Jane asked, as though just making conversation, if anything especially interesting had been discussed in the parlor.
“Nothing much. Mostly the Boss’s scheme for peace.”
“Henry Ford is going to bring peace?” Amazement colored Jane’s tone.
John shifted the sleeping Michael to his other shoulder. “And why not? Great men can achieve great things to better mankind.”
Swallowing a retort, Jane decided to leave the subject of Henry Ford as Moses be. In satisfied silence, her husband led them home.
After a private meeting with a noncommittal Woodrow Wilson, Henry Ford left the White House, announced to the waiting press that to accomplish his personal “World Wide campaign for universal peace, supported by a one-million-dollar Ford endowment,” he had chartered a ship, the Oskar II, henceforth to be known as the “Peace Ship,” that would carry the most influential peace advocates in the country across the sea, first to Norway then on to Sweden—there to negotiate an end to war. “We are going to get the boys out of the trenches by Christmas!”
As it was already November 22, a most ambitious proclamation.
Waving Fritz’s newspaper, Hannah ran over to Jane’s with the news.
“Ninnie! No more war! De Boss is going to fix it! All de important peoples are going wit him and his Missus. His friend, de great Mr. Thomas Edison and his odder one, dat important bird-watcher. Even Mr. Wanamaker Department Store—dey all are going! What a wonderful ting!”
“You think it can really be done, just by talking?” Jane poured them both a cup of coffee.
“Well—shooting each udder hasn’t done nutting.” Hannah spooned sugar into her cup. “Fritz tells me dis Schwimmer woman she even convince de Missus dis is de ting to do. If Missus Clara she says okay de boss can go and she comes too, you can bet your bottom dollar, it’s an okay ting! But …”
“But, what?”
“Just dis Hungarian ting. If dis Rosika Schwimmer lady, she was maybe even Rumanian, I wouldn’t worry … but Hungarian? Dat’s maybe a problem.”
Jane laughed, “You and your Hungarians!”
“Hey—not so funny! If she’s a real one of dose, den she is only making herself a big shot, not for de peace, only for de big importance … and de Boss’s money.”
“Didn’t the papers say she’s a Jewess?”
“Ja, and dat’s anudder ting; so, if my hunch comes true and dis woman no good, all her Hungarian will be forgotten … and dey will say, of course, her badness is because she is Jewish! … I have to go—Missus Nussbaum—her Zellie is home because he got leg burned with de melted brass, so she can’t do de watching. So Missus Horowitz, she has to find someone—maybe dat new Missus Tashner, the one whose husband works de emery wheels … you going to your Italians, see if anyting wrong?”
“I have to take Michael to Rosie first. Then I’ll go.”
“All dat way to Rosie?”
“I don’t want to burden Henrietta. She’s always so tired now.”
“Ja, well—she’s already twenty-eight, dat’s old for having anudder baby.”
“And I can’t ask Frederika.”
“Poor girl. Ninnie … you tink she is right in de head?”
“What do you mean?”
“Someting strange wit dat child.”
“Frederika has always been a little strange. Remember you said so yourself when Rudy first brought her to the house that day.”
“Yes—but cold stuck up is not like frozen dead.”
“Hannah, you sound like Serafina!”
“Well, I tink Rudy’s very unhappy and she too … and not only because de baby’s gone.”
“All they need is a little more time.”
“I wonder.” Hannah got into her heavy winter coat, put on her hat, wound a long scarf around her neck, pulled on her knitted gloves. “You coming on Saturday for de baking like usual?”
“Yes. Will you teach me to make your special rye bread?”
“We did it! Ninnie! Where are you?” John stormed into the house. “We did it!” Hearing his father’s voice, Michael ran into the hall, flung his arms around John’s leg, sat on his shoe, holding on like a monkey in a tree.
Jane, following, asked, “What?”
“There you are! Today, the first day of December in the year 1915, a Model T bearing the number ‘one million’ rolled off the line! With fifteen assembly plants working full out, we nearly missed it!”
“Every Lizzie has a number?”
“Of course. And today, we reached one million!”