If nobody else recognized the tractor, perhaps fifty-five dollars would be enough to buy it.
She did not yet understand how complicated that idea would become.
She only knew one thing.
Her grandfather had written about a forgotten machine.
And she had found it.
During the following week, May spent every spare minute studying the tractor.
She read her grandfather's notes before school. She compared drawings after finishing her homework, and she searched through stacks of old farm magazines while her father worked in the repair shop. She even asked her science teacher whether a machine could be considered historically important if it had never reached ordinary production.
The teacher smiled at the question.
“Absolutely. Some experimental machines teach engineers what not to do, while others introduce ideas that later become common.”
May thought about that for the rest of the day.
At home, she found another notation near the back of her grandfather's notebook.
Field trial completed, September 1952. Steering control improved. Secondary linkage requires redesign. Factory engineer requested final drawings.
She copied the sentence into her own notebook.
Then she found a sketch showing a mechanism beneath the tractor's seat.
It had a curved lever connected to a series of rods and springs.
Her grandfather had drawn arrows to show the direction of movement.
May did not fully understand what the mechanism was intended to accomplish, but she could see that it did not match the standard tractor diagrams.
She brought the book to her father.
“Dad, look at this.”
He wiped his hands on a rag.
“What have you found now?”
She opened to the drawing.
“Does this look like the part under that tractor?”
Her father studied it.
Then he reached for a pencil.
He traced the linkage carefully.
“That's not an ordinary factory arrangement.”
May smiled.
“I knew it.”
He held up one finger.
“Knowing it's unusual doesn't mean we know why it was built.”
She nodded.
“But it means we should find out.”
Her father smiled.
“Yes, sweetheart. It does.”
He returned the notebook.
Then he looked toward the repair shop window.
Outside, the late-summer wind moved through fields of dry corn.
For several seconds, his expression became distant.