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The ex-cowpuncher is 84-year-old Jesse Rea, a self-styled "horse tail hobbyist," who now rides the rocking chair in his farm home a few miles outside Wichita, Kansas.

Rea's hobby is the braiding of lariats, bridles, riding crops and other items from horse hair. His gnarled, patient fingers and keen eyesight enable the old-timer to transform a horse tail into products that are sold to bridle clubs, individual riding enthusiasts and various collectors of hand-made items. Some of his customers wouldn't go near a horse, but they have found that Rea's work is attractive on a belt, dog leash or hair-covered walking cane.

A PIONEER who really looks like a pioneer, right up to the drooping handlebar mustache, Rea learned to braid hair when he was riding the range as a boy back in the 70's. This was after Rea's father went west in a covered wagon and "hit Kansas with fifteen cents in his pockets," the old cowhand recalls with a chuckle.

At that time, the pioneer explains, cowboys made a great part of their equipment by hand. Their "working" bridles and halters were made of braided leather, and they used fancy, hair-braided items for "dress up" purposes. Young Rea was eager to learn everything he could from the older cowhands, and he often carried a piece of string in his pocket to practice hitches and knots they taught him.

Rea continued his education by driving herds along the Chisholm trail in Kansas and across into Kit Carson's territory in Colorado.

"We made roundup right across the Picket Wire (Purgatory River) from Carson's spread one year," he recalls.

Rea's work still shows the influence of cowboy and Indian days. He doesn't dye the hair for black and white work, but the designs he achieves from hair dyed red or green are similar to Navajo workship. He takes lots of care in washing and processing the horse tails, and the blacks and whites show sparkling contrast. He uses a commercial dye, boiling the horse hair about an hour in the dye to attain a bright color.

He wasn't even a hobbyist until about three years ago. Although he had done some braiding from time to time when a friend wanted a particular article, he didn't really start producing on a sizable scale until three years ago, when, he recalls, "I didn't have anything else to do."

Rea now spends a great amount of his time at his hobby, and stockpiled articles worth hundreds of dollars hang from the walls of his rambling old farm home. When this stockpile reached a certain stage, Rea decided he should realize a profit from his hobby.

He hasn't really started a big selling campaign yet, but the items he has sold in the last year have brought him more than $300. A great part of this amount is profit, since horse tails cost him only $2.50 to $6 when bought from a local hide plant, and sometimes he is able to pick up a free one when a neighbor's horse dies.

CONTENDING that. he doesn't "charge as much as I should," Rea lists these average prices for his work;

A 35-foot lariat, $60.
Hair bridle, $40.
Walking cane, $8 to $10.
Riding crop, $5.
Dog leash, $5.

The walking canes are aluminum sticks (he obtains the aluminum from surplus stocks of Wichita aircraft plants) covered with braided hair, and the lariats are made from regular hemp or cotton rope covered with hair. Other items are solid braids of hair.

To realize more profit from his work, Rea figures he would have to work faster and advertise better. At present he conducts all his business in his own home. He thinks nothing of spending two months at work on a bridle or two weeks on a belt for a friend.

Rea has made most of his sales the easy way-from his own rocking chair. His first real customer was a neighbor who is active in business and civic affairs in Wichita. After buying several of Rea's products, the businessman displayed them to his associates and fellow club members. These persons soon began dropping by for a look at the work, bought a few articles, and a word-of-mouth advertising campaign was on.

Rea's workmanship now can be found above fireplaces and in trophy dens of many persons who never had heard of hair braiding a few months ago. Some of Rea's products have been taken to a curio shop in a neighboring state by a vacationing friend, but the results of his initial wholesaling venture are not yet known.

"Any money I make is profit, anyway," Rea asserts. "I like to braid and would keep at it if I never sold a single item."

But his hobby would not necessarily be impractical for someone else, he says. Although the hobby is somewhat unusual, he sees no reason why anyone can't learn it, especially if the person has had experience in braiding with leather or other materials.

EXPLAINING HIS process, Rea emphasizes that the horse tails must be boiled absolutely clean before they are used. Hot water and soap can make the blacks really black and the whites dazzling as new snow.

Then, snipping the hairs out in desired lengths, usually the maximum possible, Rea starts making his "thread." This thread usually is composed of about ten single strands of hair twisted together, but can be varied in circumference with the addition or subtraction of strands. It requires from three to four tails to make a lariat, about two for a bridle. Rea can make two wide belts or six dog leashes from one tail.

Tying the ends of his threads to a hook in the wall, the braider pulls the strands taut and begins the actual braiding. The braiding consists merely of a strand-over-strand process in such a fashion that the strands interlock and become parts of a whole. Any mother who has put little sister's hair up in pigtails is a hair braider.

The design is achieved, of course, by strategically-placed, contrasting colors. Rea uses the same principles followed by persons who make beaded belts, woven materials or crocheted articles. He doesn't try to vary the design too much from article to article, relying mainly upon diamond-shaped figures and stripes.

His "diamond-back" pattern results in a lariat resembling an elongated rattlesnake. He usually throws a barber pole stripe into his walking sticks, with diamonds or other geometric figures woven into the grip at the top of the cane. His colors run to black, white, red and green.

Rea suggests that a beginner start on a small, flat item, such as a watch band or dog leash, before tackling the larger, rounded articles. The danger in doing round braid, he explains, is that the beginner is apt to leave the ends of hairs protruding at the overlap points, resulting in an uneven bristly surface.

And that kind of surface, the old cowhand declares, is the kind that started a practice among early-day cowboys which since generally has been pushed into the realm of superstition. He refers to lariats cowboys used to encircle their bedrolls as a precaution against snakes.

And it wasn't just a superstition, he explains, describing the original snake barriers as hair ropes.

"We made the ropes big and we made 'em fuzzy," he recalls. Those bristly, uneven circumferences of ropes actually presented a physical barrier to reptiles, and cowpokes held no illusions about the mystical powers of an ordinary lariat.