We wuz pushing for thirty-two of K
My messmates on the thread.
We were swollen up, and weak of eye,
And sore and weak of head.
But they handed out the shifting irons,
And the foreman he did say,
"Take out and swing this hammer, Jack,
For the thirty-two of K."

Now some of us took the handcar out
And scooted out ahead,
And some of us stood in that burning sun
And cussed the whole damn thread.
And some of starting shifting track,
And eyeing where it lay,
And moving rock and hammering shocks,
Toward the thirty-two of K.

We were up against a deep shale cut
In the hardest kind of soil.
And the hammers rang and the rounders sang
And the newbies reeled from toil.
And we cut a swath like Gawd's own path
Through that hard adobe clay.
And we doubted hard we would ever see
The thirty-two of K.

(Part II to follow)