"Do you mean the way we live at home?" he asked.
"Oh, that hasn't changed to any great extent," he said. "I've got a little house over here a ways. It's nothing very much--just comfortable. It's all we need. You can have the man drive you around there on your way back if you want. You'll see." (Later I did see; it is a very pleasant, very simple type of brick suburban residence.)
"Do you get up early?" I ventured, having, as I have already intimated, my own ideas as to what I should do if I were a Henry Ford.
"Well, I was up at quarter of seven this morning," he declared. "I went for a long ride in my car. I usually get down to the plant around eight-thirty or nine o'clock."
Then I asked if the change had not forced him to do a deal of entertaining.
"No," he said. "We know the same people we knew twenty years ago. They are our friends to-day. They come to our house. The main difference is that Mrs. Ford used to do the cooking. Lately we've kept a cook. Cooks try to give me fancy food, but I won't stand for it. They can't cook as well as Mrs. Ford either--none of them can."
I wish you could have heard him say that! It was one of his deep convictions, like the "one model" idea.
"What are your hobbies outside your business?" I asked him.
It seemed to me that Mr. Ford looked a little doubtful about that. Certainly his manner, in replying, lacked that animation which you expect of a golfer or a yachtsman or an art collector--or, for the matter of that, a postage-stamp collector.
"Oh, I have my farm out at Dearborn--the place where I was born," he replied. "I'm building a house out there--not as much of a house as they try to make out, though. And I'm interested in birds, too."
Then, thinking of Mr. Freer, I inquired: "Do you care for art?"
The answer, like all the rest, was definite enough.
"I wouldn't give five cents for all the art in the world," said Mr. Ford without a moment's hesitation.
I admired him enormously for saying that. So many people feel as he does in their hearts, yet would not dare to say so. So many people have the air of posturing before a work of art, trying to look intelligent, trying to "say the right thing" before the right painting--the right painting as prescribed by Baedeker. True, I think the man who declares he would not give five cents for all the art in the world thereby declares himself a barbarian of sorts. But a good, honest, openhearted barbarian is a fine creature. For one thing, there is nothing false about him. And there is nothing soft about him either. It is the poseur who is soft--soft at the very top, where Henry Ford is hard.