They worked under conditions that would have felt excessive to the farmers who joked about Jonah's scrap collection. Jonah cleaned each accessible section, marked the primary fracture and its branches, and checked the surrounding surfaces against the drawings he had prepared. Silas challenged the assumptions behind every mark, asking whether a change in color was genuine evidence of a fracture or only a remnant of old coolant. Whenever they disagreed, they checked again instead of choosing whichever explanation made the repair easier.
By late morning the crack map covered a complicated section of the casting. A narrow branch curved toward a bolt boss, while the main fracture continued along an area Jonah recognized from one of the practice blocks. It was tempting to see the resemblance as reassurance, but Silas made him explain the differences before discussing the repair. The International's block had carried real engine loads for years, and no amount of success on discarded practice material could erase that fact.
Dale came in carrying sandwiches wrapped in waxed paper. He set them beside the vise and asked whether they had found anything that changed their decision. Jonah told him they had confirmed the main crack and a secondary branch, but that the critical structures they had inspected still appeared sound. Dale looked at the marked iron, then the organized pages of measurements on the bench, and said it was the most careful attention anybody had ever paid to that tractor.
After lunch, Jonah began preparing the repair. Silas supervised the placement of the fixtures and checked the work before each irreversible step, his knowledge translating into short, direct instructions rather than long explanations. The boy's hands remained steady at first, but the effort required to work accurately in the damaged section became tiring as the afternoon advanced. Whenever his concentration slipped, he stopped, cleared the metal dust, and returned to the notebook rather than trusting momentum to carry him through.
Outside, Dale moved through the ordinary work of a farm in spring. He checked seed boxes, greased the planter, and drove to town for parts they would need whether the International ran or not. Everything around him seemed to be moving toward the fields while the tractor remained motionless in the shop. It took an effort not to walk back every twenty minutes to ask Jonah whether he was nearly finished.