Raising Cane - A poem by Frederick J. Atwood

Raising Cane.

The other day, a farmer
   From the burnt-up strip came in.
He looked so hale and hearty
   And wore so broad a grin
That I couldn't help but ask him
   The reason of the same,
And quickly got the answer:
   "You see, I'm raising cane.

"The hogs will fatten on it,
   And the calves, they like it so
That^__you may take my word upon it-
   You can almost see them grow!
And the chinch-bugs never touch it,
   And the 'hoppers, too, abstain;-
You're dead sure of making money
   If you're only raising cane."

Then my worthy friend, the farmer,
   Went forth upon his way,
To tell, no doubt, another
   How he'd been making hay.
But thru my head kept running
   The words of his refrain,
And I wondered if I'd better
   Start in to raising cane.

And while I pondered on it,
   My eye ran down the street
And hit that vacant eorner^__
   Just forty-four front feet^__
On which I 'd paid the taxes
   Ten weary years, in vain,
And I felt that I'd been raising
   What sounds a deal like cane.

And the winters, springs and summers
   That have fled since '79,
Passed again in swift procession,
   Sending chills adown my spine;
For I saw with clearest vision
   What calamities have lain
On a million Kansas people
   Who 'ye been-blindly raising Cain.

Away back in the '80's
   When we thought the earth was ours^__
When the corn-fields looked like forests
   And we never lacked for showers^__
When the shekels flowed from Europe,
   And New England's dollars came^__
Did anybody tell ns
   We were really raising Cain?

Did anybody tell us,
   In those years of senseless greed,
That we were daft^__plumb crazy!^__
   Were sowing thick the seed
That would shortly bring a harvest
   That would be to us a bane^__
That would rest a nightmare on ns,
   A true legacy of Cain?

No: never came a warning,
   But instead there came a Boom;
A boomerang, indeed, it was,
   And nearly struck our doom.
For almost ev'ry living thing
   Had mirages on the brain,
While town-lots sold to music^__
   Oh, didn't we raise Cain!

And when the fuss was over
   And the pendulum swung back,
And the sheriff came to see us,
   Saying gently, "You must whack,"
Sure, we knew full well his meaning,
   And it did'nt soothe the pain
To remember our transgressions
   While we were raising Cain.

And you know how things went crooked
   From Beersheba unto Dan^__
Went all awry, as only
   Affairs in Kansas can;
How crop failures and low prices
   And scarce a smirch of rain
Made votes to set Llewelling
   To raising still more Cain.

It is amazing^__ very I
   It is surpassing strange
That after all we'd suffered
   From Pops and Dems and change,
When light, at last, seemed dawning,
   When we might whitewash the stain,
The G. O. P. got funny
   And went to raising Cain.

O my farmer friend, so jolly,
   Your cane may be all right!
But the sort of stuff that's common
   Has got us in a plight
In which I think we're bound to stay
   Until, with might and main,
We start to raising common-sense
   And quit a-raising Cain!

1896.

^__Frederick J. Atwood .