still a mechanic in an Indiana town, and Ford still worked in a bicycle
repair shop in Detroit.

It was a summer night in the Ohio country and the moon shone. A country
doctor's horse went at a humdrum pace along the roads. Softly and at long
intervals men afoot stumbled along. A farm hand whose horse was lame walked
toward town. An umbrella mender, benighted on the roads, hurried toward the
lights of the distant town. In Bidwell, the place that had been on other
summer nights a sleepy town filled with gossiping berry pickers, things
were astir.

Change, and the thing men call growth, was in the air. Perhaps in its own
way revolution was in the air, the silent, the real revolution that grew
with the growth of the towns. In the stirring, bustling town of Bidwell
that quiet summer night something happened that startled men. Something
happened, and then in a few minutes it happened again. Heads wagged,
special editions of daily newspapers were printed, the great hive of men
was disturbed, under the invisible roof of the town that had so suddenly
become a city, the seeds of self-consciousness were planted in new soil, in
American soil.

Before all this began, however, something else happened. The first motor
car ran through the streets of Bidwell and out upon the moonlit roads. The
motor car was driven by Tom Butterworth and in it sat his daughter Clara
with her husband Hugh McVey. During the week before, Tom had brought the
car from Cleveland, and the mechanic who rode with him had taught him the
art of driving. Now he drove alone and boldly. Early in the evening he had
run out to the farmhouse to take his daughter and son-in-law for their
first ride. Hugh sat in the seat beside him and after they had started and
were clear of the town, Tom turned to him. "Now watch me step on her tail,"