"And you would've considered the project a failure?"
I thought about the time we'd spent examining it, the things I'd learned, and the many adults who'd taken the trouble to show me how serious work was done. "I'd have been disappointed," I said. "But knowing when not to continue might have saved Grandma more money than a bad repair would."
James smiled. "There. That's the answer I was hoping you'd discover."
The state exhibition took place in a large agricultural education center that smelled faintly of fresh lumber and livestock feed, although the livestock displays were in another building. Tables held models of irrigation systems, soil studies, small-engine restorations, animal-care projects, and notebooks full of careful measurements. Some exhibitors were older than I was, and a few seemed able to speak in front of a hundred people without even looking at their notes. I suddenly felt twelve again, small in an unfamiliar room, carrying a battered service manual among polished displays.
Grandma had pressed my shirt the night before, and I wore clean work trousers instead of a suit because Mr. Pittman said the judges would understand a mechanic dressed for a workshop. I set Grandpa's manual at the center of our table with the project journal beside it. The auction photograph stood on one side, the working-trial photograph on the other. Between them lay copies of the measurements, financial records, machine-shop report, safety checklist, and an honest list of components still being monitored as the tractor returned to regular use.
A boy from another county had restored a small gasoline engine with his father and made a display that included a clear plastic model of its moving parts. A girl two years older than me had designed a low-cost system for monitoring water use in livestock troughs. I thought both projects were excellent. The more I looked around, the less the event felt like a contest to prove who was cleverest and the more it felt like a room full of people who loved understanding how things worked. That made the waiting easier.
The judges arrived just after lunch. There were three of them: a mechanical engineer, an agricultural education instructor, and a retired equipment technician with a notebook almost as thick as mine. The engineer asked me to begin with the reason we'd purchased the tractor. I told them about Grandpa's death, the broken Case, the four hundred dollars in the farm account, and the auction where I'd spent two hundred sixty-three dollars of my own savings plus one hundred eighty-seven Grandma had authorized from the farm account.
"Why four hundred fifty?" the instructor asked.
"It was the most we could afford to lose without putting the house's immediate expenses at greater risk," I answered. "I wanted a bigger limit, but Grandma was right to hold it there."
The equipment technician looked at the first photographs. "What made you think this engine was repairable?"