Always before, carriages had been pulled. Naturally enough his first thought was to apply the power of the engine to the front wheels. Then how should he steer? What mechanism should he use, powerful enough to turn the hind wheels, against the pull of the engine, and flexible enough to respond quickly and make a sharp turn? Then there was the problem of the throttle, and the gears. The machine must be able to go more slowly, or to pick up speed again, without shutting off the power. The driver must be able, when necessary, to throw off the power entirely, and to apply it quickly again, without stopping the engine. All these vexing questions, and many minor ones, were to be solved, and always there was the big question of simplicity. The machine must be cheap. "I'm building this thing so it will be useful," Ford said once while he was in the thick of his perplexities. "There isn't any object in working at it unless it will be useful, and it won't be useful unless it's cheap enough so common people can have it, and do their work with it." The essential democracy of the man spoke then. It is the distinctly American viewpoint of the man who for years had fought sun and wind and weather, tearing his food and shelter from the stubborn grasp of the soil, and who now struggles with mechanical obstacles, determined in spite of them to make something for practical use. His standards of value were not beauty or ease of luxury. He wanted to make a machine that would do the greatest possible quantity of good, hard work. His third winter in the house on Edison avenue arrived, and still the automobile was not completed. When he went out to work in the old shed after supper he lighted a fire in the rusty heating stove, set up in a corner, and often Mrs. Ford came out and sat on a box, watching while he fitted parts together or tried different transmission devices. 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.