begin. Mr. Atwood had helped lay thick boards over the uneven dirt where we would roll a work platform. James had arranged borrowed lifting equipment for any heavy components, with adults responsible for its use. I was disappointed that so much of our first week was spent making the shop safer instead of taking the engine apart.
"You want this thing to work for years?" Mr. Pittman asked when I complained.
"Yes."
"Then start by learning how not to be hurt working on it. There's no prize worth losing a hand for."
He gave me a list of things I could inspect and record without putting myself in danger: serial numbers, external condition, missing pieces, signs of fluid leakage, and the state of visible hoses and wiring. I made a sketch of the tractor's left side and numbered the problems I could see. The battery was old enough that its plastic case had begun to distort. Several electrical connections had turned green with corrosion. One steering linkage cover was missing, and the rear tire required professional evaluation before anyone would trust it in a field.
The more we looked, the longer the list became. I felt something close to panic when we reached page four. Grandpa's manual had made the engine look orderly, all crisp lines and labels. The real tractor was a tangle of damp rust, hardened grease, and old repairs whose intentions nobody could be certain of. Mr. Pittman looked at my face and asked whether I wanted to stop.
"No," I said, too quickly.
"Then stop pretending you shouldn't feel worried. A careful mechanic gets worried and makes a plan. A careless one gets insulted by the problem and breaks something trying to show who's boss."
That night I added a fourth column to my notebook: "Things we must not guess about." It included the condition of the block, crankshaft, bearings, injection pump, brakes, steering, and every part of the tractor that could hurt somebody if it failed during use. Grandma read it and nodded as if the list reassured her. I was beginning to understand that honesty about danger could be more comforting than confident promises.
By the following Saturday, our little restoration had turned into a family operation even though only one of us was twelve. Mr. Atwood loaned a large rolling toolbox. A friend of Mr. Pittman's brought an engine stand suitable for the components we might need to handle. Mrs. Bell from the feed store gave us a stack of cardboard boxes and a set of labels so we could keep parts organized. Every gift went into my ledger with the giver's name and an estimated value, because James wanted the final accounting to show all of the support, not merely the cash.
The first real test came when Mr. Pittman tried to assess whether the engine could rotate safely. He made sure the machine was secure, the starting system disabled, and everybody out of the way. The engine resisted movement in a way that was consistent with internal seizure, though that fact alone couldn't tell us which components had failed. I watched his expression. He didn't look surprised, but he didn't look pleased either.