On a cold Thursday evening, a letter arrived from the project committee. Grandma opened it while I stood close enough to read over her shoulder. The fund approved limited support for necessary parts and professional inspections, contingent on the safety plan and our documenting the actual costs. It also offered a small stipend toward the transport and testing already completed. The amount wasn't enough to cover every possibility, but it was enough for us to take the next responsible step.
Grandma read the letter twice before handing it to me. "They trust you to do this properly," she said.
"They trust us," I corrected.
She looked toward the machine shed through the kitchen window. "Then we had better make certain that trust is deserved."
I pinned the letter beside the auction listing. Below it, I wrote the next work date in large pencil letters. It was the fifth week since we had brought the tractor home. We had not turned the engine even once. For the first time, that didn't seem like failure. We had made the purchase into a project that other people could understand, examine, and safely support, and we had enough evidence to know what we were trying to restore.
The first box of new parts arrived on a Tuesday when frost had painted white feathers along the machine shed windows. I carried it from the porch to the kitchen as though it were something alive. Inside were carefully packaged components, each labeled with a number I matched against the order sheet three times. Mr. Pittman was due that afternoon to check the shipment, and he had made it perfectly clear I was not to unwrap the precision parts and begin experimenting before he arrived. So I set the box on the table and walked around it for two hours pretending to do homework.
Grandma watched me pass through the kitchen for the fifth time. "You know staring doesn't make the clock move faster," she said.
"I know."
"Then go feed the chickens. They don't know they're waiting on a cylinder sleeve."
I went. The chickens greeted me with all the ordinary impatience of creatures who could not care less whether a diesel engine ever ran again. By the time I'd brought fresh water and checked the fencing, I felt a little more sensible. That was another thing the farm did: it interrupted your grand ideas with small jobs that had to be finished right now.
Mr. Pittman arrived carrying a bag of shop towels and an old notebook of his own. We laid the new parts beside the inspected originals, checked the paperwork, and compared the machinist's findings with the tolerances specified in the manual. A machine shop had confirmed the block remained a reasonable candidate for restoration, though one damaged surface required professional attention. The crankshaft and main bearings were serviceable after inspection and the appropriate corrective work, which felt like a large door opening. The fuel-injection system remained an unresolved problem.
"I'm not seeing a reason to throw this tractor away yet," Mr. Pittman said. "But that's not a promise it'll start in December."