We are standing on the street corner in Jacksonville free as the air except in mind. We can stand there and gape and be hustled about by the busy nation about its business of making and doing. Flattered by our homage but in no way impressed intellectually. We may copy his street corner ever so faithfully and he will say, “A good pupil. Maybe some day you will be able to copy my big street corner in New York.” A good pat on the back for the apt pupil. But remember, pupils never stand on equal footing with the master. A little independent thinking is greater than the most colossal copying.

  Fawn as you will. Spend an eternity standing awe-struck. Roll your eyes in ecstasy and ape his every move, but until we have placed something upon his street corner that is our own, we are right back where we were when they filed our iron collar off.

  Now Take Noses

  Now take the nose for instance. Loyal and kind, from the daybreak of creation down to this present moment, it has stood before man’s face and remained his best friend and adviser. Art has taken account of its stand, and science has fought battles over its uses and advantages. Noses have remained in fashion longer than any other ornament that man has ever worn, which is proof enough of its popularity. Where goes humanity there goes the faithful nose.

  One school of scientists maintains that man came before his nose and developed it to his uses. They point that it was evolved as an instrument by which man found his food and mate. Later on it was used as an implement with which he tilled his fields and attended to the affairs of his neighbors. Still later it was elevated to the position of supporting the eye-glasses of the human race and uplifting the dignity of man. Women found use for it as a powder-base. They also voted it the most suitable rendezvous for lip-meetings, sub-nosa. Hence it became a most haughty social arbiter.

  The opposing school of savants pooh-pooh this whole position. This second school asserts and believes that the nose came first and man just sprouted behind it. The nose is the measure of the man, they claim, and further state that it could not be otherwise because a man is as his nose made him. Hence the counsel of all great scholars “follow your nose.” And they cite the profound observation of Socrates “as a man nose so is he.”

  Proceeding on the theory that the nose ante-dated man these savants classify the noses of men and hence the human race.

  The Grecian nose goes straight before its face and what happens? It leads straight into love and romance. It was the nose of Helen that launched a thousand ships and every ship was full of men.

  Behold the nasal appendage of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that droppeth like the dew of heaven upon the lip beneath and leadeth its other parts to the marts of finance. It is the curve of commerce and the man so called and impelled by his nose must follow.

  The Roman nose, like all Gaul, is divided into three parts—the start, the bend, and the drop. It starts forthwith to rule the world, bends sharply to seek its means, and proceeds sharply after that to achieve its ends. This leads to conquest and law.

  The nose of Africa sits in the shade of its cheek bones and dreams. It points not upward, not downward, not anywhere. It sits and dreams and dreams.

  This pre-man-nose school of scholars is divided on one point. Some maintain that the Mongolian nose is a thing to itself. Others state just as firmly that it is the same as the African nose, but that Africa at a very early date took over the Mongolian nose and elaborated upon it.

  From all these findings it is evident that people need noses. So be good to your nose. Make a friend and a pal of it. Pet it and take it with you on your vacation.

  The nose have it, and so on.

  Lawrence of the River

  This is about a man of the cow lands of Florida. The heart of cow Florida is the Kissimmee Prairie, which stretches for more than a hundred miles from just south of Orlando to the upper Everglades. It embraces the headwaters of the St. Johns River and it gives Florida high rank among the beef producers of the Union.

  Lawrence Silas, a dark brown, stockily built Negro, is in and of the cow lands. He is important, because his story is a sign and a symbol of the strength of the nation. It helps to explain our history, and makes a promise for the future. Lawrence Silas represents the man who could plan and do, the generations who were willing to undertake the hard job—to accept the challenge of the frontiers. And remember, he had one more frontier to conquer than the majority of men in America. He speaks for free enterprise and personal initiative. That is America.

  Considering that Florida is in Dixie, it will sound like poker playing at a prayer meeting when you read that Lawrence Silas, Negro, is one of the important men of the cow country. But that is the word with the bark on it. The cattlemen of the state have a name for him, and it is good.

  They talk about him readily, and with admiration. They do not tell you about his thousands of head of cattle, his fifty-odd miles of fence, or his chunky bank account. They like more to tell you about his character and his skill, as if to say that you ought to have sense enough to know that a man like that is just bound to have something to put away.

  When I called Silas’ attention to this recently, he replied quietly: “Well, I have never had my word doubted in business. My plan is: Treat everybody right and honest; pay your just and honest debts; and tell the truth. Whenever you find a man that ain’t right, why, feed him with a long-handled spoon. Pass and repass when you find out he won’t deal right.”

  “But,” I said, “you handle a lot of horses. How about horse trading? Don’t you have to lie in a horse deal?”

  “Some folks do a powerful lot of it, so they must figure they have to. I don’t see it that way. If I think somebody is interested in buying, I tell ’em I want to sell the horse. I give so much for him, and I got to have so much for him. He ain’t no good to me, but maybe he is all right for you. In that way, nobody can’t say I lied to beat him out of his money. Then we don’t lose no friendship over the deal.”

  “As simple as that?”

  “Sure. In the first place, I know horses too well to let anybody sell me any crow bait, and then the people know that I know what I’m doing, so any horse I ever own would be good for somebody. They might not suit for what I want.”

  Silas knows horses, their uses and treatment, from nose to fetlock, and cows from horns to tail brush. The other breeders know that he knows. Therefore, the richest dealers and breeders in the business will come to him for expert advice before buying or selling herds.

  He buys and sells for Lykes Brothers, one of the biggest outfits in the world. Young Pat Johnson, whose father was one of the Florida pioneers in the game, comes to him for advice as he would to a father. If Lawrence Silas says it is so, then it is so. So be it in the grand lodge.

  By repute, his hands are as skilled as his mind and eyes. He can sit on a gap, which is what the cow people call a corral gate, and let the cowboys run—actually run—a herd of cattle past him. No matter how large the herd, amount of dust or the speed, when the last steer has passed he can tell you exactly how many passed the gap. He never misses one—or adds one.

  Then take mammying-up, for instance. That is a cow term for matching up every cow mother with her own calf at calving time.

  “With hundreds of cows and calves to mammy-up, how can you always tell which calf belongs to which cow?” you ask him.

  He smiles tolerantly. “Oh, there is ways to do that. Don’t care how many you got of the same color, there is a difference between em if you know how to look. All I need to do is to pen ’em one day, and the next day I can tell you which is which. Supposing you had twenty red calves to mammy-up. If you look at ’em good, one’s color is just a teeny bit different. One is got a different set around the shoulder. The hair is curled in a peculiar way on one front leg, maybe, and so on and so forth.

  “Things like that will tell you. You can’t depend on the calf. He will mammy-up with any cow. Then, too, I think hard about it, and some of them calves come before me in my sleep. It is something you have to get straight, else you’ll get the wrong marking brand on ’em. Some breeders who can’t do it themselves will get me to do it for ’em, and then set up on the corral fence and wonder can I do it. I always tell ’em, ‘Ten dollars for any mistake I make.’”

  And when you consider that thousands of cows are calving at the same time, you feel like the man who got down on his knees to ask God for some groceries. He was asking for everything in barrel lots, and finally asked God to send him a barrel of pepper. He caught himself and said, “Hold on there a minute, God. That’s a darned lot of pepper when you stop to think about it.”

  Silas knows what to do for every kind of sickness a cow can have. Then again, cow people insist that the moving, separating and general handling of cows is a highly technical job. Lawrence Silas, with a cigar forever in his mouth, not only handles his own but other owners get his outfit to handle theirs.

  It is something out of this world to [a] cow man to see Silas sit on a fence with his dehorner in his powerful hands and point. He can point five hundred pairs of horns in a day.

  Lawrence Silas passes that off as all in a day’s work. “I ought to be able to do that. I was born to the cow business. I been hunting cows since I was five years old.”

  “Cow hunting?”

  “Oh, that is what we call it here in Florida. When I was a boy that was just what we done. You see, there’s been cows down here in this prairie ever since the Spaniards first landed in America. Some of them they brought over got away, and so the Indians had big herds round here on the St. Johns River long before the white folks moved in on ’em. Today you don’t hunt wild cows. We got bred cows now with a lot more beef on ’em than they used to have. These imported Brahma and Guizerat bulls make a lot of difference in the beef. Lykes Brothers brought the first ones over here from Texas. B. F. Lester brought up some, and I distributed ’em round here for him.

  “Yeah, I been fooling with cows and riding the swamps ever since I was five years old. I was so little, I had to let down the stirrup in order for me to reach it. After I scrambled up on the horse, then I would pull the stirrup up after me. Used to stay out in the woods for months at a time before I was ten years old. I didn’t have to, but I always did hate farming, and so I used to stay off to keep from working round the farm.

  “My father was a cowman before me. He come down here from somewhere in Georgia, and settled at Whittier (now Kenansville). First he worked for some white folks, while he bought a cow or two at a time as he got hold of the money. Then he would sell his he and buy a she. Afterwhile he got to the place where he could go into business for himself. He owned several thousand acres of land when he died, and over two thousand head of cattle. He left thirteen head of children and no will. Mamma couldn’t hold what he left together. It was all gone in no time. I was eighteen years old when he died.

  “Well, then, I had to start out fresh. I went to work for some white folks too. I rode the woods, and butchered for men who had big herds. It wasn’t long before I was running crews for some of ’em. I have run crews from eight to ten men, and rode herd on ten to twelve thousand cattle and more.

  “I learnt to be a good butcher while I was about it. I butchered whole herds at a time for owners who did business with Swift and Company, Cudahy, and other big meat packers like that. I kept the count and the weights myself. They all trusted me to do that. The men that owned the cattle I butchered didn’t know how much they had coming to ’em till I turned over the figures to ’em and the money. Nobody ever found me off a penny.

  “The way I got my pay was, the cattlemen give me one cent on the pound and the hides for butchering for ’em. I furnished all the help and the equipment. The hides alone would bring me two to three dollars apiece. After it was all done, the owners would come to me for their money.

  “I went into the cattle business just like my father did. Bought a cow or two at a time, sold my hes and put the money into shes. Sarah, my wife, she took in sewing and kept the house going while I put all that I could rake and scrape into cows. Finally we come to have quite a few. Yes, indeed.

  “Then too, I made some few friends that really meant me good. Mr. Pat Johnson was a big man in the business, and somehow he liked to put me in the way of making something any time he could. Mr. B. L. Lester and Mr. Earl Bronson did the same. It was sort of lucky for me when the Lykes Brothers took a liking to me. From that day on, our friendship ain’t ever changed. They was just plain Florida crackers with nothing but grit and git to start off with, but they run the business into the millions. They got cows in Florida, Texas, Cuba, South America and all over. Now they own steamship lines, lumber and I don’t know what all. We was friends when they was poor and we’re still friends now when they are rich. None of them Lykes boys ain’t changed a bit. Mr. Tom and Mr. Howe Lykes let me bring their Brahma bull up to Kissimmee so I could breed ’em when they knowed I couldn’t afford to buy bulls. I got some fine ones now, but then it was different.”

  “You have a mixed crew, white and colored, and they all seem to be enthusiastic about working for you,” he was reminded. “How do you manage to keep your men happy like that when so many bosses are having labor troubles?”

  “Well,” Silas replied, “I try to deal fair and then a little more than fair with my men. When work is plentiful I pay ’em what is right. When work is slack, if any of them come to me in need, I let ’em have the money. I eat what they eat. I sleep where they sleep. I don’t ask a one of them to do nothing I wouldn’t do my ownself. And then I don’t ever use my power of hiring and firing to beat no man out of his manhood. If one of my hands don’t like what I got to say about his work, he can invite me out. I’ll go out in the swamp with him and give him satisfaction. The rest of the crew can stand around and see fair fighting done. If he is a good cow hand and still wants to work for me after we settle our differences, it is all right with me. ’Course, no man ain’t got no business running no cow crews unless he can take care of himself. There ain’t no servants in the cow business. Every cow hand figures himself a king.”

  (Curly, one of the Silas crew, here whispers out of the corner of his mouth that the boss does all right for himself with his dukes, in spite of his fifty-five years.)

  “Is cow hunting dangerous? Sure it is, and then again it ain’t. You got to know what you doing. Yeah, cows is just as risky as bulls to fool with. She don’t fly hot so often, but when she got fight in her she’ll hook you quicker than a bull. And you can’t dodge her as easy, because she don’t take out after you with her eyes shut like a bull. Sometimes a bull will come out of a bunch like a whirlwind, and if you don’t watch yourself, you’ll be thunder-struck by lightning. Naturally, a cow horse is trained for things like that. He knows how to shift. But even so, it’s nip and tuck at times. More than once I have seen my horse doing all he could to get away from a bull charge, but the bull would be so close behind us till the horse’s tail would be laying on the bull’s horns. One case in particular, it was a long race before the horse outdistanced that bull.

  “Another time it looked mighty like I was going to be riding herd on God’s big range. I didn’t have no flank girth on my horse. I roped a bull, but my throw was short, and I only got the rope on one front foot. That bull whirled and charged, and I mean charged! My horse—he was a good one—kept away from the bull’s horns, but I’m telling you, he had to do some fast turning in a close place. Then I felt my saddle slipping. So I had to put the catch dogs on the bull. Them dogs knowed just what to do. They run in and caught the bull and held him. That gave me [a] chance to get the rope off my saddle.

  “A lot of times during branding, I’ve just barely beat a bull to the fence. One of ’em got so close till he hooked my pants clean off me.

  “But I reckon a stampede is the worst thing that can happen in the cow business. Stampedes are funny things. When cows are moving around at night and lowing, there ain’t no danger of a stampede. But you take a big herd that’s all tired out from a long drive, and get all bedded down and quiet, then most anything will stampede ’em. One cow can get up and sniff around, and the whole bunch is up and off like a tornado. If you get caught in front of the bunch, you just got to be fast enough on your feet or horse to keep in front. If you try to cut across the herd, they will run over you. It’s a terrible and cruel thing. I have seen ’em run over anchored horses, and them horses would be stomped out as flat as a piece of paper. All the hair off the horse’s hide would be tromped off smack and smooth.

  “Never will forget one big stampede I saw down round the Everglades at Fort Basinger. Eleven hundred steers went into a stampede. We men heard it in time and run in every direction. The stampede headed for a big swamp. Wasn’t a thing we could do. The next morning we followed the trail down to the edge of that swamp. We knowed that the ground was too soft for ’em to get across. They didn’t but you couldn’t see no cows at all. All you could see was horns—just a whole lake of horns.

  “Yes, I done broke plenty wild horses, and I been throwed aplenty. Don’t care how good you can ride and how long you been doing it, there’s times when you can’t stay on.

  “Things done changed a lot in my fifty years on the range. The open range is gone. You don’t throw cows no more by the chin-and-horn-hold. Now we rope from a horse. The cows been bred up from them stringy-meat wild cows to heavy blooded ones. The Florida cow business done come to be something. It is a good thing too. It’s bound to be a lot of help to the Government in this tight spot. I figure we cow men is something like a good catch dog—sort of holding things until the folks up there in Washington can get another rope on things.

  “Natural, the future to me looks something different from the past. I don’t expect to keep on staying out on the range thirty and forty days at a time like I do now. A human man can’t do it. I’m buying more land all the time and extending my fences. When I can’t stay on the range so much, I figure on handling smaller herds, but a better grade of cattle. I’ll be a cow man as long as I live and always be buying more cows. I might even die out on the range with a cigar in my mouth. Wouldn’t be nothing wrong with that.”