"Trying isn't quite the same as accepting," Grandma answered, but she took the auction listing and pinned it beside the kitchen calendar. I slept badly that night, dreaming of green steel and a hammer that wouldn't stop falling. By Saturday morning, the tractor on the paper had begun to feel almost real, though I understood there was a good chance we'd come home with nothing more than an empty tin and an argument with ourselves.
Grandma woke me at five thirty with the smell of toast and the sound of the kitchen radio giving a weather forecast neither of us really needed. It had rained during the night, and the fields beyond the window were silver with mist. She made me eat two eggs before we left because she said nobody ought to bid on a tractor while hungry. I pretended the joke was funny enough to laugh at, and she pretended not to notice how often I checked the money envelope in my jacket pocket.
The auction grounds occupied a former livestock market on the east side of Harmon County. By seven, pickups and flatbed trailers lined the muddy lane, and men stood in small circles around machines whose best years were already behind them. A food wagon sold coffee strong enough to stand a spoon in, and every few minutes an engine started somewhere only to cough and quit. I loved the noise. Grandma looked around at the equipment haulers, the toolboxes, and the confident men in canvas coats, and I could tell she was measuring our little car against the size of the gamble we had made.
We checked in at the registration desk, where a woman with pink reading glasses explained that I could help inspect and discuss the lot but Grandma would be the legal bidder and buyer. She gave Grandma a paddle with number thirty-eight printed on it. The auctioneer later agreed I could hold it while bidding, provided Grandma remained beside me and approved every offer. I wasn't annoyed by that. Grandpa had taught me that rules were supposed to protect people, and I wasn't going to lose the chance because I wanted to look older than twelve.
Lot seven was parked almost at the end of a long row of machinery. The John Deere's hood was dented near one headlight, and faded yellow paint clung to the wheels like old chalk. Its seat had split so deeply that a pale strip of foam showed through the black covering. Grass had once grown around the tires; dry stalks remained tangled in the rims. Somebody had washed away the worst of the dirt for the sale, but rain streaks still marked the green body where water had sat for years.
I stood beside it for several minutes without touching anything. That was something Grandpa insisted on, too. Before you get your hands dirty, look until your eyes stop racing from one problem to another. A machine that has been neglected long enough will offer you twenty reasons to panic. You have to decide which facts matter first.