"What\'s sorghum?" Don\'t you know sorghum?

My gran\'son nigh sixteen,

Don\'t boys know nothin\' nowadays?

Beats all I ever seen.

Why sorghum\'s the bulliest stuff

Wuz ever made ter eat.

You spread it thick on homemade bread;

It\'s most oncommon sweet.

"Come from?" Wall yer jist better bet

It don\'t come from no can.

Jus\' b\'iled down juice from sorghum cane,

Straight I\'way \'lasses bran\'.

"What\'s cane?" It\'s some like corn, yer know,

An\' topped with plumes o\' seed.

Grows straight an\' tall on yaller clay

That wouldn\'t grow a weed.

Long in September when \'twuz ripe,

The cane-patch battle field

Wuz charged by boys with wooden swords,

Good temper wuz their shield.

They stripped the stalks of all their leaves,

Then men, with steel knives keen

Slashed off the heads and cut the stalks

An\' piled them straight an\' clean.

The tops wuz saved ter feed the hens,

Likewise fer nex\' year\'s seed.

The farmer allus has ter save

Against the futur\'s need.

The neighbors cum from miles erbout

An\' fetched the cane ter mill.

They stacked it high betwixt two trees,

At Gran\'dads, on the hill.

An\' ol\' hoss turned the cane mill sweep,

He led hisself erroun.

The stalks wuz fed inter the press,

From them the sap wuz gro............