History Lesson 
Sold American!
George Morse looks like he belongs in an ad that says, "This man just borrowed 85 million dollars from our bank."
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TRUE TO HIS PRINCIPLES, GEORGE Morse looked rested, but he did not look relaxed. Morse admits he seldom relaxes until several animals into the sale. While others visited over coffee, he climbed onto his perch above the auction ring and began testing the sound system. He turned the bass up and the treble down. He unplugged a speaker that didn't sound quite right, then plugged it in again because it was better than nothing. He suggested to one of the Jernigan's staff that they arrange for a complete back-up system in the future, in case something went wrong with the main system. He fretted about the acoustics and worried that the noise the cattle were making would interfere with the sale. It was not the petulant bitching of a prima donna, but the concerned attention to details that marks the truly professional performer. Gerald Bowie, a rookie auctioneer from West Point, Georgia, who would spell Morse in the latter part of the afternoon, watched and commented on his own good fortune: "You know, to be asked to sell behind George Morse, one of the best in the business, on one of the best herds in the country, could be a lifetime honor." To commemorate the occasion Bowie had presented Morse the night before with a gavel (actually a rounded and polished stick about six inches long, two inches wide, and a half an inch thick) that he had carved from a hundred-year-old barn door on his Georgia ranch.
A few minutes before one o'clock, folks found their seats in the three small grandstand sections semi-circling the ring and Robert Jernigan and his daughter Judy, who looked like she could have been an Amanda or maybe a Martha, took their places in the auction box on either side of Morse, Judy to keep track of the sales and Robert to laud the qualities of the animals in the ring. Jernigan paid brief tribute to Ralph Hutchins while several men and women about Mr. Ralph's age brushed tears from their sun-parched cheeks, and Morse introduced the "ring men" who would help him during the sale. Ring men scatter themselves throughout the crowd to relay bids to the auctioneer and are a vital and colorful part of the auction. Most work for livestock magazines and serve as ring men in return for ad space purchased by the rancher giving the sale. With the vigilance of wagon-train scouts they lean forward and search expectantly for the gestures that signal a bid. When a bidder loses the lead and seems about to drop out, they get right down in his face and quietly cajole him into bidding just one more time. When the bid comes they translate it instantaneously from a discreet nod or wink into a raucous, ear-splitting yell. Every ring man has his own yell—Bruce Brooks of The Drover's Journal favors EEEOOOWWW, Fred Ferrell of The Charolais Banner leans to HEY-AHHHHHHHH, and Johnny Brandon of The Cattleman emits a wild YEEE-AAAHHH—so that an auctioneer has little trouble discerning which of his helpers has sent the message.
The preliminaries done, Morse declared this sale was one of the great moments of his life and sounded like he meant it. Then, with the air of a man willing to seize a great moment, he dramatically pronounced the ritual phrase: "Ladies and Gentlemen...the auction is on." And it was. Head bobbing and weaving, eyes darting about the crowd, hands snapping out and in as if catching bids on his fingertips, gavel tapping a brisk rattattat to maintain the flow for the microsecond he needed to take a breath, Morse rolled along at a dazzling clip, pausing only when he felt it his duty to let the crowd know the bidding was unconscionably low. The effect was something like a cross between a gatling gun and a frontier evangelist pleading with sinners to repent before it is "everlastingly too late."
Early in the sale, Morse displayed his artistry on a magnificent half-French cow and her twin calves—"This is an own daughter of Uranium, rebred back to B-71 and safe in calf; a great cow from a great cowman. Tell me, boys, how many dollars for them? Give me twenty thousand to go. Give me seventyfive hundredTHIRTYFIVEIgotthirtyfivehundredbidthirtyfivegivemefourthirtyfivefourrattattatwillyougivemefour YEEEEAAAAHHHHHallrightfourmakeitnowfiverattattatthinkingnowfiveEEEOOOWWWfiveHEY AHHHHHsix...seven...eight...now we're going. You'reoutinthebackIgotanewmanoverherebettergivemenineEEEOOOWWWEEEOOOWWW he did IgotninethousanddollarswillyougivemetenrattattatIgotninegivemetenninethinkingnowten...Now boys, take a hold, take a new look. We can sell them this high at any crossroads. If we got them all as good as this one, we wouldn't have any competition in this business. I have nine thousand on my right, I want tenYEEEEAAAAHHHHHHallrighttennowfivehundreddollarsonhertenfivegivemefive...she's a young cow, she's got two young calves, she may be carrying two more. This may be a five-in-one package. AreyouabletobuyemIgottenthousandmakeitfivetenfivegivemetenfiveopenthatgatewe'regonnasellhertenfiveSOLD for ten thousand to N. B. Hunt Ranches. Thank you, Richard."
"Ol' Bunker likes those French cattle, don't he?"
"Yeah, he does. And he can sure as hell afford 'em, too."
Another early highlight was the sale of a quarter interest in B-71. Under the terms of the sale, the buyer would get 800 vials of semen immediately and one-fourth of all the semen B-71 produced each year. And, as Robert Jernigan explained, "You can do whatever you want to with it. If you want to sell it or give some of it away, you can do it. It's your semen." With that kind of enticement, the bidding started at $10,000 and went up so fast that Morse's chant amounted to little more than counting by fives—"TENnowtenfivenowelevengivemefiveIgotfivemakeittwelvetwelvefivethirteen"—and Fred Ferrell quit yelling and just started laughing. At $17,500, several bidders obviously reached the point they had decided was their limit and the bid stopped rising. A big price on B-71 could set a standard for the rest of the sale, so George and Robert pulled out all the stops. George noted that "B-71 has as much bone and substance as any bull we've seen in a long while. And he puts it on his calves. He's a lOO per cent certified meat sire. Why, at $17,500, we're doing little more than selling the 800 vials of semen. It'd be worth that much just to say you owned part of this bull." Then, to assure folks that what the 800 vials contained was not your everyday, run-of-the-bull semen, Jernigan asked Dr. Cardwell, the vet who has cared for the Hutchins herd, to comment on B-71 's generative powers. Dr. Cardwell laid it out straight: "Fertility has to be the name of the game," he said, "and B-71 ranks as one of the top bulls fertility-wise that we've ever had in stud. When we have hard-to-breed cows, he's the one we like to go to for the best results."
The quality of his work certified by a doctor, B-71 quickly found some cattlemen who wanted to be identified with him and drew bids of eighteen thousand, then eighteen-five. As the action slowed again, George admonished the faint-hearted: "Boys, you'lI join the old Wish-I-Had club if you pass this up. I believe, as sure as we're sitting in this barn, that if you ask anybody to name the top five or ten bulls in the U.S.A. today, he'll put B-71 in there with them. I sell B-71 cattle every day of the year, so I guess I should have some idea of what they're worth. Honestly and truly. And I think B-71 is worth a whole lot more than what you're offering."
By now, the contest was down to two men, Glen Roney of nearby McAllen and Jack Canata of Houston. Roney raised the bid to eighteen-six and Canata decided to think about it awhile. Two ring men worked on him feverishly, expectantly, but he would not budge. Then, as if no one else were listening, Morse looked straight at him and said, real low and smooth, like a close friend offering carefully weighed and secret advice, "I'll tell you what to do. You give me $20,000 and I think we'll shoot him clear out of the barn. Think what it would be worth on your advertising to own an $80,000 bull. The Great B-71. Just get on that even money and buy the bull. You won't have the chance to do this again in your lifetime." Canata cracked, but not wide open. He went up to eighteen-seven and Roney, probably already a hundred over what he had figured the bull was worth, ducked his head to signal he was through. Jack Canata had bought himself one-fourth of a lot of bull.
THE BEST ANIMALS CUSTOMARILY GO early in a sale, and the tension runs fairly high as breeders compete with each other for cattle that could become mainstays of a topflight herd. Further down the line, things relax a bit and folk start to take themselves and their competition a bit less seriously. They know that if they lose one $4000 cow, another just about as good will be along in a moment. The sales team likes the audience loose, of course, but works to make sure they don't let things go flat and "lose the auction." At this point the value of an experienced ring man like Fred Ferrell becomes clear. Folks like to have Freddy work their section not only because he knows his business, but also because, just standing or walking, he makes them laugh. His uncomplicated face sits atop a thick body that has absolutely no extra height for its weight, and when he walks he moves as if the strings connecting the various parts are a little too tight so that the joints don't flex just right. He teases the buyers and they feel free to poke fun at him:
"Freddy, the way you passed me coming out here, you must have taken an offensive driving course."
"Why don't you get a haircut, boy? You're starting to look like a damn sheep."
"Freddy, you've missed about three bids now. I don't think it's good for you to go to Mexico."
Morse also loosens up and amuses the crowd and himself by raising the pitch and speed of his chant to sound like a record being speeded up, or switching into a minor key for a few seconds, then switching back with a grin about the time somebody notices what he has done.
As the afternoon wore on, both the sales staff and the buyers were clearly feeling satisfaction over the way things had gone. They had set no records, but between them they had done right by Mr. Ralph. The 721/4 lots brought a total of $275,600, safely within the $250-300 thousand range they had hoped for. Several people came by to shake Morse's hand and tell him, "You done a wonderful job, George, but then you always do." George allowed that was awful kind of them and said he'd be looking forward to seeing them up at Bunker's ranch in Terrell in a few weeks.
"I'll be there. And, say, if you ever get down to Florida, you be sure and come by to see us, will you?"
"You know, I might just do that. Where is it you live, exactly?"
"You can't miss it. It's right on the way."
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