buck n1, freq attrib [ME bukke stag, he-goat]
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5 A worker who lifts or carries heavy objects, such as bales of hay or sacks, or transports water—used in combs hay buck, sack ~, water ~, wood ~. chiefly Pacific Cf buck v1 B7b, bucker n1 5
1890 Woodland Daily Democrat (CA) 21 Feb [3]/4 (newspaperarchive.com), Two gangs of sack-bucks are at work loading wheat from the warehouses . . , and the immense surplus is being rapidly reduced. 1906 San Francisco Call (CA) 31 Aug 10/5, [Advt:] At Red Cross Employment Company. . . Fallers, spooltenders, sawyers, swampers, laborers, mill and woods, water bucks, etc. 1912 NV State Jrl. (Reno) 2 Oct 7/3, [Advt:] Francovich Employment Agency. . . 2 chute builders $50.00 month—1 water buck $50.00 month—1 timber faller $60.00 month. 1917 U.S. Dept. Ag. Bulletin 440.32 CA, Wood is the universal fuel for yarders. . . This limb wood may be carried to the yarder by the woodbuck or packed on a mule for small machines. . . The first method of supplying water to donkey engine boilers was by packing in water bags on mules. One waterbuck and mule is required for small boilers. 1917 Woodland Daily Democrat (CA) 14 Aug 5/3, The grain [=barley] is now being hauled by big trucks which . . haul 125 sacks or about 6 tons to the trip. . . Sack bucks pick up the sacks. . . Earl Meyers is the champ sack buck, picking up and piling 1,100 sacks in one day. 1923 Ibid 22 Sept 8/3, [Advt:] Rice Growers. . . When you need—Cooks, Shockers, Bundle Pitchers, Teamsters, Sack Bucks, . . Etc., Telephone Sacramento Main 3214. 1949 Peattie Cascades 150 Pacific NW, The boy was sixteen now, he had held his own as woodbuck to a donkey engine in the camp. 1958 McCulloch Woods Words208 Pacific NW, Water buck—Anybody carrying water to a crew. 1966 Walla Walla Union–Bulletin (WA) 20 May 10/2, [Advt:] Truck drivers and hay bucks wanted. Taylor Feed Store. 1995 Davies–Frank Memorable 79 ID (as of 1947), My two packs of water were soon emptied and I was again directed to fetch more. As I headed back down the fireline toward the little waterfall I was joined by two other water bucks who had heard that I had discovered an ash free source for water. 2001 Rhode Harvest 90, The water monkeys were also known as “tankies,” “water-dogs,” or “water bucks”; their task was to use the “arm-strong” method of pumping the tank full of water to be drunk by the thirsty boiler. 2015 in 2017 DARE File—Internet csCA (as of 1960s), Our guy-friends worked as hay bucks, hooking 100-pound bales and stacking them in neat rows on a flatbed truck. 2016 Ibid cWA (as of 1950s), In Joe’s early teens he worked . . as a hay buck loading and unloading numerous trucks on a daily basis.
6 See hay buck n 1.
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