She called Henry Lawson first. "I may have found a combine," she told him.
"That green thing from Briggs's sale?"
Martha closed her eyes. The story had traveled faster than she had. "Yes. But it isn't ready."
"My neighbor says you won it for free."
"My neighbor could tell you what a free combine costs if he'd like to help buy the parts."
Henry laughed, then grew serious. "Can you actually cut my corn?"
"I believe we can get there. I won't promise until I finish the repairs and a loaded field test."
There was a pause. Then Henry said, "Well, that's more honesty than I got from the last outfit I hired. What do you need?"
Martha explained the price, a reasonable reservation payment that would be credited against the job, and the conditions under which she would refund it if the machine failed its final inspection. Henry listened to everything without interrupting. When she finished, he said he would bring the payment by the shop the next day. He also offered an unused corner of a field for the supervised test if his corn reached suitable condition on schedule. Martha thanked him, hung up, and stood beside the telephone for a moment, listening to her heartbeat. The first person had trusted the plan enough to put money behind it.
That night she called two more farmers. One agreed to a tentative booking. One declined, explaining that he needed a guaranteed modern crew and would not be part of an experiment. Martha understood and thanked him. She did not tell June about the refusal until June asked why the number on the booking board had changed. Then they discussed it plainly. Honest work did not entitle them to every customer. A person had a right to hire someone else, just as Martha had the right to decline an unsafe job. June wrote the name in a separate column marked future contact, not lost.
The following week was a lesson in how long a practical dream took to turn into a machine. They ordered bearings and belts through a supplier who found older equipment more interesting than profitable. A retired mechanic named Everett Shaw loaned them a specialty tool for one assembly after Martha agreed to return it clean and undamaged. A parts yard in northern Iowa located an intact guard and shipped it for less than the price of a new one. Some components could be cleaned and reused. Others could not. Martha refused to confuse saving money with accepting an unacceptable risk, even when she stood at the workbench staring at the latest invoice.
June learned more during those days than she had in an entire semester of lab exercises. A textbook could explain the function of a bearing, but it could not teach the exact mixture of patience and judgment required to evaluate an old part whose replacement was expensive and whose failure in service would be worse. Martha made her describe the symptom, the evidence, the likely causes, and the verification plan before touching any assembly. When June guessed, Martha asked what would prove her right. When Martha guessed, June was allowed to ask the same question. That rule slowly changed the atmosphere of the shop.