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

[Stephen Goranson]

Quoting "Cohen, Gerald Leonard" <gcohen at MST.EDU>:

> 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"

I do not know. But it seems at least weakly possible that he awoke and vaguely
thought of rain then of seeing something like a passenger train because
Jim and
Perry moved his rone (OED noun 4, water pipe) and splashed him with water to
wake him up. Long-shot iffy, but since guesses were few...
SG

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