Roy called that afternoon and asked whether Dale had reached a decision on the newer tractor. Dale explained that they were attempting to repair the cracked block and would know more after testing. There was a pause long enough for Dale to imagine Roy shaking his head on the other end of the line. "I hope it works," the representative finally said, sounding more serious than amused, "but don't wait until you're out of options to call me."
Dale thanked him. He understood that Roy was trying to sell equipment, but he also knew the man had seen farmers lose crucial weeks because they trusted a machine that was not ready. After hanging up, he wrote the dealership's number beside the financing figures and returned the folder to the shelf. It remained there like a warning, not an enemy.
Near the end of the afternoon Jonah encountered the first serious setback. One repair pin did not seat with the feel he expected, stopping short in a way that made his hand hesitate on the tool. He tried to understand whether the resistance came from the thread, the casting's irregular surface, or his own alignment. Then he put the tool down and called Silas over rather than forcing the pin farther simply to keep the job moving.
The old mechanic examined the area without touching it. He asked Jonah to describe the sensation as precisely as he could, then had him check the surrounding measurements and the condition of the prepared hole. Jonah discovered a slight irregularity that would have made the pin unreliable if he had continued. It was a small problem that could be corrected within the remaining sound material, but only because he had stopped before creating more damage.
"Last winter you'd have leaned on it," Silas said. Jonah looked at the tool in his hand and admitted that he probably would have. The old man nodded toward the casting. "And then you'd have had to explain to your father why you put a bad part inside an engine because you didn't want to lose ten minutes." Jonah carefully revised the local repair plan, checked it again, and resumed only after both of them were satisfied.
By evening the lines of mechanical stitching had begun to give the fractured casting a new appearance. What had been one continuous break was now held by a series of carefully installed repairs intended to restore the section's integrity without subjecting