He had settled finally on a leather belt, passing over the flywheel and connecting with the rear axle. A pulley arrangement, controlled by a lever, tightened or loosened this belt, thus increasing or decreasing the speed of the automobile. That broad strip of leather, inclosed, running from the engine on the rear axle to the pulley under the front seat, was the parent of the planetary system of transmission.
Ford worked on it all winter. It was a lonely time for Mrs. Ford, for the general attitude of the neighborhood toward her husband had roused her good country temper, and she “refused to have anything to do with people who talked like that.” She knew Henry was perfectly sane, a better husband than most of them had, too, and anyhow it was none of their business how Henry spent his time, and if they didn’t like, they could lump it.
Nevertheless, as the winter days followed each other in an apparently endless procession, she grew moody. The baby was coming, and she was homesick for Greenfield and the big, comfortable country home, with friends running in and out, and the sound of sleighbells jingling past on the road outside.
She put the little house to rights in the morning, and faced a long, lonely day. She sewed a while, wandered about the rooms, looking out on the dreary little street, with its scattered houses and dirty trampled snow, yawned, and counted the hours till her husband would come home for supper.
When he came, she had the house warm and bright, the table set, hot biscuits browning in the oven. She dished up the food, poured the tea, brought the hot plates. They sat down to eat and talk, and the minutes seemed to fly. Before she had said half she had stored up through the day, before Henry had more than begun to talk, he pushed back his plate, drank his tea, and said: “Well, I must be getting to work.” Then he went out to the shed and forgot her in the absorbing interest of the automobile.
“Oh, when is it going to be finished!” she said one night, after she had been sitting for a long time in silence, watching him at work on it. She began the sentence cheerfully, but she caught her breath at the end and began to cry. “I c-can’t help it, I’m sorry. I w-want to go home to Greenfield!” she said.
Ford was testing the steering gear. He dropped his tools in surprise, and went over to comfort her.
“There, there!” he said, I suppose patting her back clumsily, in the awkward way of a man unaccustomed to quieting a sobbing woman. “It’s done now. It’s practically done now. It just needs a little more——”
She interrupted him. She said his horrid old engine was always “just needing a little more.” She said she wanted him to take her back to Greenfield. Wouldn’t he please, just for a little while, take her home to Greenfield?