But because someone had bid at all.
And according to the arrangement he believed was already in place, nobody was supposed to.
The dealer stepped forward.
"Hold on."
The auctioneer looked toward him.
"What?"
The dealer pointed at the tractor.
"That machine's scrap. Somebody ought to tell the kid before he throws away his money."
The boy looked straight at him.
"You already told everybody."
The dealer frowned.
"What?"
"You told everybody the engine was ruined."
The machinery dealer's expression hardened.
"Because it is."
The boy glanced toward the tractor.
Then quietly asked.
"Did you take the engine apart?"
The question seemed to strike the dealer unexpectedly.
For several seconds, he did not answer.
Then he laughed.
"Kid, I've been fixing tractors longer than you've been alive."
The boy nodded.
"Yes, sir."
The dealer spread his hands.
"And I'm telling you that engine will never run again."
The boy looked down at his coffee tin.
For a moment, his expression changed.
Not into defeat.
Into sadness.
Then he looked toward the old John Deere.
And whispered something nobody else in the room could hear.
"Grandpa, please let me be right."
The auctioneer lifted his gavel again.
The dealer stepped backward.
He had a decision to make.
If he intervened too strongly, people might begin asking why he cared so much about a supposedly worthless tractor.
If he remained quiet, the boy might win it for two hundred dollars.
The dealer glanced toward the auction's floor manager.
Then toward a clipboard hanging beside the podium.
His jaw tightened.
He had expected Lot 142 to receive no legitimate bids.
He had arranged to purchase unsold salvage equipment after the auction for a flat disposal price.
That was supposed to include the old John Deere.
A machine worth far more than anyone in the room realized.
Now a twelve-year-old boy with a tin full of coins was standing between him and a profitable secret.
The auctioneer called again.
"Two hundred. Do I hear two twenty-five?"
Silence.
The dealer looked around.
Several farmers avoided his eyes.
Nobody wanted an engine supposedly destroyed beyond repair.
Nobody except the boy.
"Two hundred, going once."
The boy swallowed.
His mother stood beside him.
She looked frightened.
Not because she feared the auctioneer.
Because she understood exactly how much that money meant to her son.