Query: What does "rone" mean in "The Rafters Song"?

[Mark Mandel]

Nothing on "rone", but in looking for the song I found some background.

Googling "Rafters Song" gets a lot of irrelevancies. Mudcat Cafe doesn't
have it at all. Googling "Pike's Defeat" at least turns up something
relevant:
a. These "rafters" are men who run river rafts, not parts of a building.
b. The author of the song was one of them.
c. Pike's Defeat was a bend on the Big Piney river.

http://steamboattimes.com/rafts.html [I have corrected a couple of apparent
errors from typing the quotation into the webpage]:

---
Though the rivers (in the Ozark Hills) could not be navigated by steamboats,
they were perfect for rafting logs out of the Ozark hills. Thus began a
cottage industry of tie-hacking, and the men who became famous and infamous
in local folklore throughout the nineteenth century. Tie-hacking consisted
of cutting out the best oak in the forest, thinning rather than
clear-cutting the trees. The logs were then hacked into uniform ties, and
tied together to create a raft which could, with luck and courage, be guided
down these fast streams to St. Louis. It was a rough job, often done in the
dead of winter. Bends along the Big Piney were named for their dangerous
histories like "Pike's Defeat," "Crooked Shute," and "Devil's Elbow." When
local heroes have names like Nathaniel "Stub" Border, you know they lead
wild lives. Nathaniel lost a hand, toe, and eye before his career was over.
Because the forests were thinned rather than clear-cut, the trees lasted, as
did tie-hacking, up until right after World War I. Even after that, local
subsistence farmers would occasionally cut trees for ties well into the
1930s.
   Credit: The Transportation Landscape Within the Fort Leonard Wood Region
of the Missouri Ozarks, by Steven D. Smith.
---

(Googling "rone" turns up nothing useful visible at a glance, but the last
page of hits includes the intriguing title "Arrest and Commitment of an Aged
Rone" in a NY Times query. I thought it might be a typo for "crone", but no:
it's an OCR error for "Roue". The article, published Aug. 13, 1871, tells of
a dirty old man trying to pick up a little flower girl. PDF at
http://tinyurl.com/psn9r7 )

And -- aha! -- it is NOT "THE Rafters Song", as I also misread it, but "TIE
Rafters Song". See the start of the above quotation. And Googling for *that*
gets one hit, which, alas, is not very helpful. It's in a listing of archive
at the Missouri Institute of Science & Technology: Mann Family Recordings &
Sheet Music // Sheet Music - Music Related Material // Box 88 Fldr :

92. “Tie Rafters Song” Transcribed by CVM. Aug. 20, 1939.

http://archives.mst.edu/documents/professional_papers_and_publications.doc

On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 6:02 PM, Cohen, Gerald Leonard <gcohen at mst.edu>wrote:

> I've been asked the meaning of "rone" in "The Rafters Song" (words below;
> see last line of fourth verse).  OED online has several entrees for "rone,"
> but none contains an appropriate meaning.  The term is not in DARE, and I
> don't find an appropriate meaning in the Engliish Dialect Dictionary.  A
> search of Google doesn't help.  Nathaniel 'Stub' Borders was an Ozarks
> figure, and he wrote his song about 1940.
>
> I'm completely stumped.  Would anyone have any ideas on what "rone" below
> means?
>
> G. Cohen
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Tie Rafters Song
>
> by Nathaniel 'Stub' Borders
>
>
>
> Good morning, Papa, Hello Son,
>
> Now I'm goin' to tell you
>
> What the Rafters done
>
>
>
> They left Edensville
>
> Just a quarter till one
>
> And they made Pike's Defeat
>
> By the setting of sun, by the setting of sun
>
> And they made Pike's Defeat
>
> By the setting of sun.
>
>
>
> I got up next morning
>
> And it looked like rain
>
> Just around the bend, I thought
>
> I spied a passenger train
>
>
>
> When I came to find out,
>
> It was Jim and Perry
>
> Just a raisin' my rone
>
>
>
> Jim reported to his stern hand
>
> He had troubles of his own.
>
> Mamma, Mamma, I can't see
>
> How these rafters get a full reputation
>
> In a first degree.
>
>
>
> Hush up, Baby, don't you cry
>
> The next papa that you have
>
> Will be a rafter man
>
> T.N.Borders is a brave Riveree
>
>
>
> He told his brother Davie
>
> That he need not to fear
>
> "All I want you to do at Three Islands
>
> Is to snub her hard"
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org