Carl Sandburg gives us a quick portrait of a tough Chicago ice handler. The man has a cocky physical presence—pearl-buttoned flannel, a hundred-pound block of ice, free food at the saloon—and he announces the weather like a boast. We learn he spends his Saturday nights on a heavyset dishwasher, which feels less like romance than appetite. The real feeling comes from his union memory: he broke scabs’ noses and loosened wagon wheels, then watched the ice melt in the street. The speaker doesn’t moralize; he seems to enjoy the man’s unapologetic toughness, and the mood is sweaty, rough, masculine, and darkly comic. His only regret is that one scab bit his knuckles—not that he hurt anyone, just that he got marked.
Ice Handler — Summary
I KNOW an ice handler who wears a flannel shirt with pearl buttons the size of a dollar,
And he lugs a hundred-pound hunk into a saloon icebox, helps himself to cold ham and rye bread,
Tells the bartender it's hotter than yesterday and will be hotter yet to-morrow, by Jesus,
And is on his way with his head in the air and a hard pair of fists.
He spends a dollar or so every Saturday night on a two hundred pound woman who washes dishes in the Hotel Morrison.
He remembers when the union was organized he broke the noses of two scabs and loosened the nuts so the wheels came off six different wagons one morning, and he came around and watched the ice melt in the street.
All he was sorry for was one of the scabs bit him on the knuckles of the right hand so they bled when he came around to the saloon to tell the boys about it.