conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide a description for a book titled Always the Young Strangers about P>CARL, SANDBURG, Pulitzer with the genre: Biographies & Memoirs, Professionals & Academics.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: <P>CARL SANDBURG (1878&#8211;1967) was twice awarded the Pulitzer Prize, first in 1940 for his biography of Abraham Lincoln and again in 1951 for Complete Poems. Before becoming known as a poet, he worked as a milkman, an ice harvester, a dishwasher, a salesman, a fireman, and a journalist. Among his classics are the Rootabaga Stories, which he wrote for his young daughters at the beginning of his long and distinguished literary career.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide the first five paragraphs for this book.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Always the Young Strangers
  What was a "house of sale"? The next line had been excised by Hudson, and no one could explain the phrase until a student who had an unexpurgated edition read the next line—"evidently a brothel." There was a painful silence; some of the boys snickered; others evidently did not know what the word meant. The teacher recovered first, and with heightened color said, "We will now go on."
  As to the pure and the impure observed by Calkins in the 1880's and 1890's, he wrote: "An expectant mother was a disgraceful spectacle followed by whispered comment. Childbirth was never discussed; either in school or society. Children imbibed no beautiful associations with maternity. The obscene passages in the Bible were always skipped in the Sunday-school classes." Once a year the high-school boys were called into a session for males only—but not for a talk on sex hygiene. "No, the lecture was a stern admonition against fouling the public privy and writing on the fences with chalk words now found in current novels. The Puritans who warred against slavery, intemperance, Sabbath breaking, with beating of tom-toms, evaded the subject of sex completely. Whatever a child learned was from contemporaries, and it was years before most of them got the matter straight in their minds."
  Edward was the oldest of the five children. He finished high school, became a certified public accountant, and half the time was out of town on business.
  Then a blow fell, one of those things beyond prediction before it happens, almost beyond belief after it is a fact staring you in the face and saying, "What's to be done about it?" In the realm of relations between man and woman is a platitude that anything can happen and usually does. Edward Higgins, a bright and good-looking fellow, with a reputation for being "honest and upright" and keeping company with decent and respectable people—Edward Higgins had suddenly married a woman. And they had set up housekeeping in a large house on a respectable North Side street, and the woman Edward married was known as one of the sorriest, blowsiest whores that had ever hit the town. There too to that house I went with my milk can and poured out the quarts for the loose-mouthed, slipshod, barelegged, loose-gowned slattern who ran the house and while Edward was away on business trips had men and drinking parties in the house. I saw this affair going on and Edward's mother sad-faced about it. I moved on into another job and didn't hear how it came out, though I am sure Edward couldn't have stood it for long. One night when I passed the Higgins house and saw their lighted windows I said to myself, "You can read happiness or anything else you want in the lighted windows of a house at night."
  Once in a blue moon, possibly more often than the appearance of a white crow, a lyric love may arrive to a prostitute and a man's need of her. My good Swedish friend, Dr. Thor Rothstein, with a reputation beyond Chicago in his day in the medical profession, told me of a case. The man had syphilis. The woman who had given it to him he wanted to take out of the house where she was and marry her and have children, and he was asking if both of them could be cured of their disease. The doctor said, "Yes, you can both be cured, but it might be a terrible wrong to the children if you should have cohabitation until a year after the core. Can you promise me that?" The couple hesitated and then promised. They were married. They met the doctor's condition. "The children came, three of them," said Dr. Rothstein. "I can say they were wellborn, and it has been for twenty years a successful marriage and still is." Perhaps one moral in the realm of the relations of men and women is: "You never can tell."
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide three more paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: C. W. Williams came to Galesburg from Independence, Iowa, where he had what they called a "kite-shaped" racetrack, though some said it was more like the figure eight. He had been a telegraph operator and had picked up, at prices that later looked silly, two mares. The world-famous stallions Axtell and Allerton were foaled from these two mares "bought for a song." In 1889 the three-year-old Axtell cut the world's trotting record for stallions down to two minutes and twelve seconds, and on the night of that day was sold to a syndicate for one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, said to be then the highest price ever paid for a horse of any breed. Two years later Mr. Williams could have sold his stallion Allerton for more than he got for Axtell. This was after Mr. Williams himself drove Allerton to cut down the world stallion record to two minutes and nine and three-quarters seconds.
  So when Mr. Williams came to Galesburg in 1894 he had a reputation, organized the Galesburg District Association, and laid out a new racetrack on one hundred and twelve acres on the Knoxville Road east of Farnham Street, the same land where I had carried water for a hay-harvest crew, and across the road from the house where I had seen a man make a woman cry with words he snarled at her. The new racetrack, Mr. Williams gave it out, was "the only dead-level track in the world." Shaped like a railroad coupling pin, the long sides of it were dead level, with the ends graded for the sulkies to make the turn. In the great six-weeks racing meet that Mr. Williams put on there were rainy days when races had to be put off and other days when small crowds came, even though the trotters and pacers had national reputations. But there was one big week of good weather and one smashing big day in that week. That was the day we saw the black mare Alix come down the home stretch to break the world's record for trotters. Away later I wrote of it: "I see her heels flash down the dust of an Illinois race track on a summer afternoon. I see the timekeepers put their heads together over stop-watches, and call to the grandstand a split second is clipped off the old world's record and a new world's record fixed. I see the mare Alix led away by men in undershirts and streaked faces. Dripping Alix in foam of white on the harness and shafts. And the men in undershirts kiss her ears and rub her nose, and tie blankets on her, and take her away to have the sweat sponged. I see the grandstand jammed with prairie people yelling themselves hoarse. I see the driver of Alix and the owner smothered in a fury of handshakes, a mob of caresses. I see the wives of the driver and owner smothered in a crush of white summer dresses and parasols. Hours later, at sundown, I see Alix again—and I want to rub my nose against the nose of the mare Alix."
  That day put Galesburg on the map for horsemen and horse-lovers over the whole country. At the center was Mr. Williams. I saw him several times on the track and on the Knoxville Road driving Allerton and other stallions he had "placed at stud." He was a medium-sized man with an interesting face. I thought his face looked like he had secrets about handling horses yet past that there was a solemn look that bordered on the blank—I couldn't make it out. He made a great name in the horse world and breeders came from the country over to see him. The blood of his stallions ran for many years in winning horses. A horse named Lee Axworthy, who ran a mile in 1:58¼, was a grandson of Axtell.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Swap the first and the last sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: A horse named Lee Axworthy, who ran a mile in 1:58¼, was a grandson of Axtell. W. Williams came to Galesburg from Independence, Iowa, where he had what they called a "kite-shaped" racetrack, though some said it was more like the figure eight. He had been a telegraph operator and had picked up, at prices that later looked silly, two mares. The world-famous stallions Axtell and Allerton were foaled from these two mares "bought for a song." In 1889 the three-year-old Axtell cut the world's trotting record for stallions down to two minutes and twelve seconds, and on the night of that day was sold to a syndicate for one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, said to be then the highest price ever paid for a horse of any breed. Two years later Mr. Williams could have sold his stallion Allerton for more than he got for Axtell. This was after Mr. Williams himself drove Allerton to cut down the world stallion record to two minutes and nine and three-quarters seconds.
  So when Mr. Williams came to Galesburg in 1894 he had a reputation, organized the Galesburg District Association, and laid out a new racetrack on one hundred and twelve acres on the Knoxville Road east of Farnham Street, the same land where I had carried water for a hay-harvest crew, and across the road from the house where I had seen a man make a woman cry with words he snarled at her. The new racetrack, Mr. Williams gave it out, was "the only dead-level track in the world." Shaped like a railroad coupling pin, the long sides of it were dead level, with the ends graded for the sulkies to make the turn. In the great six-weeks racing meet that Mr. Williams put on there were rainy days when races had to be put off and other days when small crowds came, even though the trotters and pacers had national reputations. But there was one big week of good weather and one smashing big day in that week. That was the day we saw the black mare Alix come down the home stretch to break the world's record for trotters. Away later I wrote of it: "I see her heels flash down the dust of an Illinois race track on a summer afternoon. I see the timekeepers put their heads together over stop-watches, and call to the grandstand a split second is clipped off the old world's record and a new world's record fixed. I see the mare Alix led away by men in undershirts and streaked faces. Dripping Alix in foam of white on the harness and shafts. And the men in undershirts kiss her ears and rub her nose, and tie blankets on her, and take her away to have the sweat sponged. I see the grandstand jammed with prairie people yelling themselves hoarse. I see the driver of Alix and the owner smothered in a fury of handshakes, a mob of caresses. I see the wives of the driver and owner smothered in a crush of white summer dresses and parasols. Hours later, at sundown, I see Alix again—and I want to rub my nose against the nose of the mare Alix."
  That day put Galesburg on the map for horsemen and horse-lovers over the whole country. At the center was Mr. Williams. I saw him several times on the track and on the Knoxville Road driving Allerton and other stallions he had "placed at stud." He was a medium-sized man with an interesting face. I thought his face looked like he had secrets about handling horses yet past that there was a solemn look that bordered on the blank—I couldn't make it out. He made a great name in the horse world and breeders came from the country over to see him. The blood of his stallions ran for many years in winning horses.C.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide the last five paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Churches: American Methodist, ; Congregational, ; Elim Lutheran, 67–70; First Baptist, ; First Swedish Lutheran , , 58–59, 65–67, , , (old) ; Swedish Methodist, , , , (new) 360–61
  Knox College, , , 298–304, ; site of Lincoln-Douglas debate, , , 241–42, , ; celebration. 1896, ; 50th anniversary,
  Sandburg, August (father of C. S.), 16–17, , 31–32, 34–38, 63–64, , 425–26; appearance, ; as juror, 99–101; character and ways, , , 38–39, , , , , 58–59, 77–108, , 430–32; children's attitude toward, 48–49, ; education, ; mortgage and, 102–08; death, ; music and, 84–85, ; quoted, , , 39–40, , , 77–79, 90–94, , , , ,
  Sandburg, Carl, occupations: barbershop porter, 234–41, 367–70; boathouse helper, 252–54; bottle-washer; 250–51; college student, 423–24; drugstore chore boy, 230–32; firehouse call man, ; handbill distributor, 148–49, ; hobo, 381–402; icehouse worker, 254–56; mail-order businessman, 232–33; milkman, 220–25, 241–48, 400–01; newsboy, 211–19; office boy, 209–11; painters apprentice, 401–02; potter's helper, 251–52; racetrack boy, 372–74; soldier, 404–11; stage helper supe, 273–75; tinsmith's helper, 248–50; water boy, , 347–48
  Sandburg, Clan Anderson (Mrs. August, mother of C. S.), 420–21, 425–26; appearance, ; character and ways, 16–17, , , , 63–64, 79–96, 426–17; death, ; quoted, , , , 42–43, , 80–82, , 91–94, , , , , , , , 425–29, 432–33