Lakin, Kansas

In Lakin, Sandburg took advantage of the Kansas wheat harvest by working for another threshing crew for about three weeks.

The work came easier with getting used to it. The dust in your nose and eyes, the chaff sliding down your sweating back, you got used to. One evening at six o'clock the boss said there was only two hours of threshing left and a full moon would be up. We ate supper, at seven went on threshing by the light of a bright full moon, and finished at nine o'clock.

On Sandburg's trip out of Lakin, a "shack" (train brakeman) kicked him off the bumpers of a fast freight. Riding the bumpers refers to standing on the couplers between two cars and keeping hold of the brake rod for stability. It was extremely dangerous.

 

• Lakin, Kansas

  
  

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  In Lakin, Sandburg took advantage of the Kansas wheat harvest by working for another threshing crew for about three weeks.

  The work came easier with getting used to it. The dust in your nose and eyes, the chaff sliding down your sweating back, you got used to. One evening at six o'clock the boss said there was only two hours of threshing left and a full moon would be up. We ate supper, at seven went on threshing by the light of a bright full moon, and finished at nine o'clock.

  On Sandburg's trip out of Lakin, a "shack" (train brakeman) kicked him off the bumpers of a fast freight. Riding the bumpers refers to standing on the couplers between two cars and keeping hold of the brake rod for stability. It was extremely dangerous.