It showed a green tractor with an unusual metal housing beneath the steering column.
The drawing was dated 1951.
Beside it was a series of stamped characters.
XH-47-01.
May studied the number.
Then she turned the page.
Her grandfather had drawn the same tractor from another angle.
Beneath the sketch, he had written:
Experimental field unit. Test configuration. Do not confuse with production tractor.
May frowned.
She had read enough manuals to know that experimental machines sometimes looked almost identical to ordinary production models.
They might use familiar body panels while hiding entirely different components.
She continued reading.
The notes described a special clutch mechanism designed to reduce the physical effort required for certain tractor operations. There were also references to an early safety linkage that disconnected drive power under particular conditions.
The language was technical.
May did not understand all of it.
But she recognized enough to become curious.
Near the bottom of the page, her grandfather had written another sentence.
If you ever find the green test tractor, check the plate beneath the left-side housing. The catalog never told its whole story.
May read the sentence three times.
Then she closed the notebook.
She had no reason to believe the tractor still existed.
Her grandfather had been dead for two years.
The field trials had taken place decades earlier.
And the notebook contained no recent information about the machine's location.
Still, she remembered the drawing.
Two weeks later, she visited an old farm with her father.
The property belonged to a recently deceased farmer whose equipment was being prepared for a county auction.
May's father had been asked to evaluate several machines before they were moved.
He brought her along because she enjoyed examining old tractors and because the work involved mostly visual inspections rather than operating equipment.
They arrived on a cool Saturday morning.
The farmyard was crowded with machinery.
There were worn plows, grain wagons, rusted cultivators, and old tractors waiting beneath a long equipment shed.
May walked slowly between them.
Then she saw the green machine.
It stood near the far wall, partially concealed behind a hay rake.
The paint was badly damaged.