F AUDUBO

BY

EZEKIAH- BUTTER1

FOR THE PEOPLE

FOR EDVCATION

FOR SCIENCE

LIBRARY

OF

THE AMERICAN MUSEUM

OF

NATURAL HISTORY

IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

BY HEZEKIAH BUTTERWORTH.

Uniform Edition. Each, 12mo, cloth, $1.50.

In the Days Of Audubon. A Tale of the "Protector
of Birds." Illustrated by B. West Clinedinst and
Others.

In the Days of Jefferson ; or, The Six Golden
Horseshoes. Illustrated by F. T. Merrill and Others.

The Story of flagellan. A Tale of the Discovery
of the Philippines. Illustrated by F. T. Merrill and
Others.

The Treasure Ship. A Story of Sir William Phipps
and the Inter-Charter Period in Massachusetts. Illus-
trated by B. West Clinedinst and Others.

The Pilot of the Hayflower. illustrated by H.

Winthrop Peirce and Others.

True to his Home. A Tale of the Boyhood of Frank-
lin. Illustrated by H. Winthrop Peirce.

The Wampum Belt ; or, The Fairest Page of
History. A Tale of William Penn's Treaty with
the Indians. With 6 full-page Illustrations.

The Knight of Liberty. A Tale of the Fortunes of
Lafayette. With 6 full-page Illustrations.

The Patriot Schoolmaster. A Tale of the Minute-
men and the Sons of Liberty. With 6 full-page Illus-
trations by H. Winthrop Peirce.

In the Boyhood of Lincoln. A Story of the Black

Hawk War and the Tunker Schoolmaster. With 12
Illustrations and colored Frontispiece.

The Boys of Green way Court. A Story of the
Early Years of Washington. With 10 full-page Illus-
trations.

The Log School = House on the Columbia. With
13 full-page Illustrations by J. Carter Beard, E. J.
Austen and Others.

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.

f"**rf£

Something new almost daily would awaken their curiosity,

(See page 73.)

IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

A TALE OF THE " PROTECTOR OF BIRDS"

WITH AN APPENDIX ON
THE FORMATION OF AUDUBON SOCIETIES

BY

HEZEKIAH BUTTERWORTH

AUTHOR OF

IN THE BOYHOOD OF LINCOLN, THE BOYS OF GREENWAY COURT,

IN THE DAYS OF JEFFERSON, ETC.

ILLUSTRATED BY B. WEST CLINEDINST
AND OTHERS

NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

1901

V

Copyright, 1901,
By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.

"Hunt the eagle and lion if you will, but do not hunt

the weak."

Michelet.

"The bird prepared the earth for ye. Why kill the

friends of Wilson ? "

Michelet.

The Symphony of Life : "To live content with small
means ; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement
rather than ostentation ; to be worthy, not fashionable, and
wealthy, not rich ; to study hard, think quietly, talk gently,
act frankly ; to listen to stars and birds, to babes and sages,
with open heart ; to bear all cheerfully, to do all braYely, to
await occasions, hurry never. In a word, to let the spirit-
ual grow up through the common. This is my symphony. "

William H. Channing.

PKEFACE

The great growth of " Audubon Societies " for young
people and of "Bands of Mercy" among children; the
adoption of the " Bird of Washington," or the white-
headed eagle, on many State shields, and on crests and em-
blems; and the new view of what Audubon's Birds of
America did to bring a superior emigration to our States —
suggest a place for a new story of the life of Audubon.

Such a story I have attempted to write, so as to give
a picture of old times in the pioneer West, and to encour-
age the forming of societies for the protection of birds.
The study of birds with the camera opens a new field
for the young naturalist, and calls him to the woods and
country under new conditions.

While the storv of Audubon's life in this volume fol-
lows the methods of historical fiction, the narrative and
illustrated anecdotes are substantially true — fact in picture.

There is, so far as I know, no American story of Audu-
bon for young people's libraries of historical fiction. The
story of the Protector of Birds would seem to be a needed
influence in the growth of the kindergarten spirit toward
birds and dumb animals.

vn

yiii IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

The forest tales of Audubon furnish also one of the
most realistic pictures of the early history of pioneer life in
our country. Folk-lore is sometimes the truest history.
The stories in the Ornithological Biographies of Audubon
picture what America was in the times of the foresters.

But, above all, Audubon was a true man, and his char-
acter was formed on the right models, and for the reason
that he made his birds immortal in perfect art, he himself
became immortal.

This is the impression I have sought to make in this
interpretation of the life of the American Woodman.

I have added an Appendix on how to form Audubon
societies, how to study the beneficent habits of birds, and
how to tame birds without cages by making them the
dwellers of dooryard trees, after the manner of old English
cottagers and the New England farmers, in whose door-
yards and gardens bird-boxes filled the gables and trees.

The story of Wilson, the Scottish poet-schoolmaster, is
almost as beautiful and instructive as that of Audubon's
forest life, and I have included some of his thoughts in
this volume.

It has seemed best to me to aid this interpretation of

Audubon by the story of Victor Audubon, the son of

the ornithologist, who was his faithful companion in the

forests.

Hezekiah Butteewokth.

Boston, Mass., June 1, 1001.

CONTEXTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. — A SURPRISED CLERK 1

II. — A LITTLE BIRD THAT DIED 8

III. — Decisive hours — the story of poor Polly and the mon-
key 11

IV. — Young Audubon's cave 24

V. — A STRANGE ADVENTURE ON THE ICE — A WEDDING JOURNEY

IN AN "ARK" * . 35

VI. — A PEDLER WITH A FACE LIKE A BIRD 39

VII. — A HERBMAN OF SINGLE SIGHT WHO WAS LAUGIIED AT — THE

HERB DOCTOR 43

VIII. — The genius that sees — the story of the Forest Inn

AND THE WREN 56

IX. — Victor, the son of Audubon — father and son in the

FOREST — FOREST TALES — PARTRIDGE LAND — AN OLD KEN-
TUCKY Fourth of July 63

X. — IN DAYS OF POVERTY— FATHER AND SON — DANIEL BOONE . 81
XI. — A NOBLE WIFE 96

XII. — Victor, the forest boy — how he studied nature . . 99
XIII. — Audubon discovers the great eagle, the bird of "Wash-
ington— THE EMBLEM OF THE REPUBLIC . . . .105

XIV. — The dark room — Audubon and the rats .... 109
XV. — Alexander Wilson, the American " Robinson Crusoe "

— his parrot 113

XVI. — Florida as it was 117

ix

X

IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

CHAPTER PAGE

XVII.— The sick boy — wagon tales 123

XVIIL— The signature of the king 145

XIX. — Audubon visits Baron Rothschild 155

XX. — The Czar's golden snuff-box — Audubon's forest tales 159

XXI. — A HUNT WITH A SQUATTER 162

XXII. — Old Missouri days, or the Western States as seen

by Victor 168

XXIIL— The story of how the Indians on the Missouri dis-
appeared 180

xxiv. — a buffalo-hunt — a great bear — the hand above the

REEDS 181

XXV.— Audubon and Daniel Webster, of Marshfield Farms 196

XXVI. — The protector of birds 203

XXVII. — The inn in the forest — strange news .... 208
XXVIII. — The home of Audubon on the Hudson — what a natu-
ralist's HOME SHOULD BE — THE MUSICAL WOODPECKER 213

XXIX.— The last days 218

APPENDIX

how to form an audubon society 220

Selections for recitation at Audubon Societies . . . .227

LIST OF FULL-PAGE ILLUSTKATIONS

FACING
PAGB

Frontispiece

Something new almost daily would awaken their curi-
osity

"The Bird of Washington"* .

Mocking-birds defending their nests *

Father and son painted together

"The prairie dog hung on until I shook it off"

Portrait and autograph of Audubon

"A thousand dollars a copy !"

Monument in Trinity Cemetery, Amsterdam Avenue, New York

* After the original plate in Audubon's The Birds of America.

xi

59
70
143
171
192
210
218

IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

CHAPTEK I

A SURPRISED CLERK

Xear the close of a long summer day a clerk sat at his
desk near an open window in an inn. He had nothing to
do at the moment, and chanced to cast his eye toward the
end of an old Indian forest trail near the hostelry, when
he saw a strange figure emerging from the bushes.

" Look here! " he presently said to a solitary lounger in
the office. " There comes the old man of the forest him-
self— loaded with what? "

" Sticks," said the lounger.

" Well, I would say sticks — no, a mountain eagle's nest
and a leather pouch. I wonder what he has in the pouch?
There are some queer men in the woods in these times,
but he is the oddest one I have seen yet. The old fellow
is making for the tavern. "What could I do with him if
he should want a room? A party of the members of the
circuit court are to sleep here to-night."

The man who had come out of the forest stopped on

2 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

the wide oak veranda. He was not old. Under the portico
there was a sign bearing the inscription " The Kelay Inn."

The queer-looking man laid down a huge nest on the
floor of the veranda very carefully.

" Hey, you there, old fellow, don't you clutter up the
floor! We are going to entertain a party of men from
the court to-night — jurymen — and we want things about
here to look trim and clean. What are you going to do
with that bird's cord-wood, anyway? "

" My friend, that is a nest of the white mountain
eagle."

The stranger seemed to regard it as a treasure.

" So I see. But what of it? It is simply a pile of sticks.
Why do you bring them here ? "

" My friend, I beg your pardon, but that nest is very
rare. I climbed two days to secure it, and tore my flesh —
see, see — so as to bring it down the cliffs unbroken. I
would not displace a single stick, not for a doubloon.
There it is, just as I found it. My arms ache carrying
it in such an exact way. Show me to a room."

" Show you to the wood-house ! You do not expect to
take that bundle of sticks and a lot of other trumpery to
a regular room in the inn? "

" Why, my young man, of course I do. Are you not
a little rude to a stranger who comes to you for hospi-
tality? "

" Old man, you are daft."

A SURPRISED CLERK 3

" I beg your pardon. I am neither old nor daft. You
keep a public bouse, to which all respectable folk should
be welcome. I am an eminently respectable man. You
have no moral or legal right to treat a gentleman rudely. "

" "Well, old fellow, leave your sticks in the wood-shed,
and I will give you a room in the attic — the rest of the
rooms are to be occupied to-night. The judge, jury, and
witnesses are to be here. That is the best I can do."

" But I must take the nest to my room. I wish to
paint it before anything happens to disarrange it — to paint
it just as the eagle left it on the cliff. I came near fall-
ing over the cliff to secure it. I tied a rope to a tree
on the cliff, and let myself down by it over the edge of
the cliff, when — it makes me dizzy to think of it! — the
tree bent over. It has been dry weather, and the soil is
shallow on the surface of the rock. I periled my life
to secure that nest. I would not sell it for pounds, for
doubloons, for napoleons, for anything."

The clerk stared.

" You must be loony! "

"Sir?"

" You must be daft — a little off — not quite all there.
I wouldn't give a penny for the nest for kindling wood
on a cold day in winter. What can that rotting rub-
bish be to you? "

"My life — my life is in it. Oh, you don't know!
You can't see! What power taught the inhabitant of the

4 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

skies, the worshiper of the sun, the winged dweller in
the chambers of the air, to build a nest like that? "

" Heaven knows — I don't. Well, a man can't help
being wanting, so lee me carry that nest with all of its rock-
weeds and rubbish up to the sky room, as carefully as pos-
sible, so as not to litter the stairs."

" You carry it? I would not trust you to touch it —
you, who in your present state of ignorance know little
of the wonders of a creation like that. Did you ever
read the book of Job? "

" Eo, I never did. What's in it? Who wrote it? "

" What is in it? The hidden secrets of the universe.
Who wrote it? Job. He saw behind nature — he had
a vision of the instincts of the universe of creatures of
air and wings. He "

" Well, old fellow, you or I must have gone daft, but
I am left in charge of this hotel. So take the nest, and
I will show you the room in the cockloft under the rafters."

The stranger took up the nest very carefully, and fol-
lowed the clerk up the hard oak stairs. As they passed
the rooms on the second floor, where doors were open,
the clerk said:

" Look in there — the chambers are herrin'-boned witli
sand, as white as marble, all ready for the court, who
will be here soon on horseback. I don't know what the
judge would think to find a man here with an eagle's nest
and what not. I wish your visit had been deferred. I will

A SURPRISED CLERK 5

ring a second bell for you snpper time, for the first table
will be full."

The stranger looked into the sanded room, and stum-
bled; a part of the nest fell. He threw back his head.

" Now you have done it ! " said the clerk. " Just look
at the floor, and all that dirt right before the room to
be occupied by the Honorable Judge Rush! "

The stranger trembled.

" I wouldn't have had that happen for a fortune."

"But what do you think of me? There is your room
up the ladder at the top of the stairs. Go into it before
anything else happens, and stay there until I call you."

The stranger's eyes overflowed with tears. He bore
up the broken nest carefully, and threw himself upon the
bed and wept like a child.

The sun was going down over the immense forests in
a languid sky. The air was so still that distant sounds
could be heard, and the road rocks seemed to echo.

There was a far-away noise of horses' feet. A horn
was blown, and the sound seemed to tremble in the still air.
Then fourteen men came riding up to the veranda of the
hotel, dropping the reins on the horses' necks, and dis-
mounting. The landlord was with them.

The horses began to feed by the way, and the land-
lord, brusk and brisk, called out to the clerk:

" You haven't let any of the rooms to-night, I hope."

" Only the cockloft."

6 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

" Who did you let have that? "

" I don't know — an old fellow from the mountains —
addled, he seemed to be; had been hunting old birds' nests."

" That's strange."

" Come to think of it, his face was fine — Frenchy.
He had a fine manner, too. But he didn't seem to know
anything — sort of a hermit wanderer, whose wits had
gone; he had long hair."

The Honorable Judge Rush tapped the landlord on
the shoulder after hearing the description.

" How do you know," he said, " but the stranger in
the top room may be Audubon? "

The clerk stood as if transfixed. He had never heard
of Audubon before, but he recalled that the stranger that
he had sent to the garret had a remarkable face, although
it was scarred and torn. The judge had spoken the name
in a tone of reverence.

" I will go up and see," said the landlord.

The clerk was excited. If he had treated a man of
importance in a rude way would the landlord overlook
the blunder?

There was loud talking in tones of surprise in the cock-
loft. The landlord was coming down the stairs, repeat-
ing apology after apology.

The clerk heard a musical voice saying:

" Oh, don't mention it; don't mention it. The clerk
judged me hastily by my woodsy appearance. I overlook

A SURPRISED CLERK 7

it all — it is I that caused him to be uncivil. It is all
right — all right."

The legal party, headed by Judge Rush, awaited in
the office the return of the landlord. The latter came
into view on the stairs, followed by the stranger.

Judge Rush bent over at the sight, saying, after the
old-time manner, with his hand on his breast:

"Have I the honor?"

Each of the fourteen or more lawmakers followed his
example, placing their hands on their breasts, and saying:

"Have I the honor?"

" Honorable gentlemen," said the landlord, " let me
present to you one who is making our country known to
the world as few men are or can, the naturalist who will
sit at the head of the table to-night — John James Au-
dubon! "

Every one bowed respectfully.

"Clerk!" shouted the landlord.

But the " clerk " had disappeared. He was seen fly-
ing through the openings of the trail out of which the
stranger with the eagle's nest had appeared. He was not
prepared to serve at the table that evening, with John
James Audubon at the head and the judge next in order.

It is a cabin tale, and I use it here to introduce the
reader to a very remarkable man to whom America owes
a debt of increasing gratitude.

CHAPTER II

A LITTLE BIRD THAT DIED

The life of John James Laforest * Audubon reads like
a wonder tale. He was born in New Orleans, May 4,
1780, in a house in whose gardens the mocking-birds sang.

He was a wonderful boy. His father was a French
naval officer, sometimes called " admiral." His mother
died when he was fourteen; his father married again, and
his new wife became dotingly fond of her little stepson,
who had genius, grace, and beauty, and a heart overflow-
ing with love. His new mother thought him the " hand-
somest child in France."

In childhood his heart went out to birds; he seemed
to love and almost worship everything that had wings.

He was taken to Santo Domingo, where his Spanish
mother lost her life in the insurrection of the blacks. He
returned with his father to New Orleans, and lived amid
the charms of a mossy plantation outside of New Orleans —
probably the same that Louis Philippe came to call " Fon-
taine plain."

* Although Laforest is omitted in many biographies, Audubon's orig-
inal name was John James Laforest, and his wife addressed him as
"Laforest."— H. B.
8

A LITTLE BIRD THAT DIED 9

The JSTew Orleans plantation where he dwelt was full
of birds; in the morning the dewy air was filled with
song. There were joyous wings in the gray moss of the
glistening green leaves of the magnolias. Gem-like hum-
ming-birds flitted among the trumpet-creepers, and hung
pendent from the orange and crimson flowers. The song
of the mocking-bird thrilled him as it floated through the
regions of the air. He followed it as if it were a celestial
being; he heard in it an expression of nature that came
from the benevolent heart of the Omniscient.

" Hush ! 'tis the mocking-bird," he may have said to
those around him. " Why should we prattle when a true
poet was singing as at the very gate of heaven? "

He had a passion for painting birds. His family de-
lighted to follow his development in this art.

One day he found a live bird of beautiful plumage,
and brought it gently to his room with a palpitating heart.
The lovely creature charmed him, and he dreamed of it
day by day. As he studied it the bird grew more beau-
tiful, and he loved it more and more. He awoke early
to visit its cage; he fed it often. But the thought of the
bird seemed far away among the magnolias or in the
rice and cotton fields. Her mate may have been there.
The close room and the loving boy were not the open
air, the blue, sun-flaming sky, or the brother and sister
birds of flower-haunted Louisiana. The little bird pined
away notwithstanding the boy's love and care.

10 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

Little Audubon found it dead one morning. His heart
seemed to stand still; his eyes became suffused with tears.

" My bird, my darling bird ! I can not let it go ! I
will not — it shall not go ! "

"But what will you do, my boy?" asked his fond
father.

" I will paint it, and it shall live again ; it is too beau-
tiful to lose!"

He sat down and transferred the bird with all of its
delicate coloring to the paper. Then they took the form
away and buried it; but he had it still in picture, and he
loved to dream of or imagine the field note of the little
bird that died.

His home in Louisiana was full of sunshine and love,
of beauty and bloom, and tender hearts. It was a home
of wealth, but his heart was strange in it.

" I love nature more than anything else. I was born
for the woods; I hear voices in the trees. I do not care
much for other things. I was born with an idea! "

So he thought of himself. In the midst of his life
among the sun birds of the wide fields of Louisiana his
father was summoned to France, and he took his lively
boy with him.

CHAPTER III

DECISIVE HOURS THE STORY OF POOR POLLY AND

THE MONKEY

It was at Xantes, the seaport of France, the ancient
home of the dukes of Bretagne, and the resting-place of
the old French kings, that young Audubon took up the
charmed life of his childhood, doted on by his susceptible
stepmother, taught music, dancing, and other polite ac-
complishments. But amid all the luxuries of the society
of a family of a naval officer in the days of the first em-
pire the boy caught the voice of a bird. To him it was
as a song from heaven.

He followed it out into nature, and nature, as on the
old Louisiana plantation, began to enthrall him again.

Xantes was full of noble and delightful promenades
that led down to the great harbor. To these, out-of-door
life might have tempted him; but no, he must wander
into the far woods and hear the new songs of birds and
study living colors. He made two hundred pictures of
birds. In doing this he formed the pattern of his whole life.

The old commodore, or " admiral," his father, came

sailing back from the scenes of the great sea exploits of

the time.

11

12 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

The French Revolution had passed, and the career of
Napoleon was now dazzling France. The elder Audubon's
heart seemed to dance at the thought that the eagles of
Napoleon would outshine those of Rome in glory.

" Oh, could I have a son that would become great
on the sea ! " he thought. " I must place John James
in the naval academy."

He came to his home to find his boy a fondling of
society, with his ears charmed by birds.

He determined to break off these pursuits and to place
him in a naval school.

So one day he started for a naval training school a
long distance from Nantes, taking his gentle son with
him.

He thought that he must be stern with his son now.
So the two rode in silence together for several days. The
boy naturalist must be hardened for life on the sea.

The boy obeyed him, or tried to do so, but his heart
and imagination turned to the American forests and to
the songs of the birds. He studied mathematics indeed,
but he began to wander into the woods again, and re-
turned to Nantes.

" Give up birds and mosses and all such things as
those," said his father. " You must prepare to follow the
armies of Napoleon and the eagles of France."

" But, father, I do not care for wealth or fame; I
love nature."

DECISIVE HOURS 13

" Yes, the boy loves nature," said an old Frenchwoman
with a snowy kerchief and cap who was knitting on the
balcony near the open window looking out on the sea
where the father and son were. " He loves nature, and
his heart has eyes for nature. Do not put out his eyes.
I can see what he ought to be, Captain Audubon; I have
the ' open vision ' sometimes. He ought to paint birds —
American birds. Oh, it makes my heart go pitapat to
hear him talk of the birds in the magnolia groves of the
far-away Louisiana plantations! "

The old woman had been his governess or teacher, and
represented the Audubon household. She had knit and
knit since the dark days when her family had been de-
stroyed in the Revolution. They called her the " Knitter
of Mantes."

The boy was grateful to the old woman for what she
had said. He believed her to be a kind of prophetess, and
he went and stood by her chair.

She let her work fall into her lap.

He was a picture of beauty as he stood beside her
in his velvets. His eyes were aglow as with the light
of the hope of the future; his hair was long, and he
wore it so during most of his perilous life. He loved
his father, but his soul rose in him now, and he must
speak.

"Say on," said the "Knitter of Mantes." "Speak
up, and don't be afraid."

14 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

" Father, the good woman speaks true. I wish to
make you happy, but, father, I would never rise in the
navy; my heart has another calling, and my good teacher
here has spoken it. Let me paint birds — the birds of
America — and I will one day have the gratitude of
kings."

" The gratitude of kings, my son ! But you just said
that you did not care for fame."

" No ; but I would love to have the world feel grate-
ful to me for doing my best."

" Do I hear my ears?"

The Knitter rose, dropping her needles and her work
on to the floor.

" Captain Audubon, listen. There are voices of old
wisdom that come to me now, and I must deliver my
message. It is this — boy, listen: 'Neglect not the gift that
is in thee.9 Captain, hear: ' Seest thou a man diligent
in his business? he shall stand before Icings; he shall not
stand before mean men9 That is all."

She sat down, picked up her knitting, and her needles
flew in the rays of the sun.

The boy stepped back to his father, and said:

"You love France. It is your birthplace; but Amer-
ica, O my America! that is my birthplace."

" My boy, can I imagine that you would do anything
for America that would ever receive the signature of the
king?"

DECISIVE HOURS 15

" I can, father — my soul shows me what I can do,
what I can be and what I ought to do."

" What, my son? "

" To be an American artist. To be that I would be
willing to suffer, and to do perfect work I would sacrifice
anything, and I would be true to the work to which God
calls me."

" You would be willing to sacrifice — to give up — to
suffer? Oh, my boy, you disappoint me; and yet — and yet
ought I not to be grateful to Heaven for a child with a
gift like yours? "

The Knitter bowed her head.

Captain Audubon sat for some time in silence. He,
too, loved America. To paint America would be a noble
calling.

" My boy," he said at last, " it may be that your
calling comes from within. You may go to America,
your own beloved America, if you wish, and my bless-
ing shall go with you. To picture America is a noble
thought — next to being a soldier. And your aspiration
to do work that will receive the gratitude of a king is
also a noble one. You are a noble boy, but if ever your
work receives the signature of a king bring it to me,
and we will lock hands when you and I are older than
now. Wherever you are and whatever you may be, do
perfect work."

" Father, I love you. I will be true to you, and that

IQ IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

hour will come; and whether you are living or dead, I
will bless you then.'7

Audubon drew the pictures of birds and painted them,
but he outgrew his own work every year.

On New-year's day he destroyed the pictures that
he had made the year before. They did not meet his
ideal. His father saw that he needed the training in the
best schools of art.

He showed the old Knitter of Nantes his new pictures
with delight.

" I have brought you to-day," he would say to her, " a
new portfolio of birds."

" Where is your last year's portfolio ? "

" I put it into the fire on New-year's day."

"My boy, you are doing well; you are growing."

His father sought a teacher for him.

David, the painter of colossal battre scenes and of
great historical events, a man of the Revolution, an en-
thusiast and a colorist, was then a leader of French art.
Pupils came to him from many cities, and he helped make
many of them famous. Among them came this boy
from the Louisiana plantation, where the nonpareils
haunted magnolias and mocking-birds trilled in the blaz-
ing air.

He did not come to learn to paint tragedies. He had
a tender heart. To kill a bird for science was to him
a tragedy, and he shrunk from it. But he could learn

DECISIVE HOURS 17

the art of coloring from David, and this art was essen-
tial to help him fulfil the purpose of his soul.

So he studied under the painter of bloody revolutions
with his own purpose in view.

He was not overawed by the great fame of David;
he kept his own purpose. And herein again was a secret
of his success. He wished to do perfect work, and he
kept to his ideal. Amid the luxuries and splendors of
the French capital he dreamed of the mighty forests of
America that he would one day reveal to mankind through
perfect pictures of its birds.

His chosen subject for life was American birds. His
dream was to do perfect work.

He probably did not see at this time wThat the value
of this work would be to the world. He may not then
have had a vision of a stupendous book on ornithology.
Xo, he was not thinking of himself, but only of this —
that God had made him a lover of nature, and given
him power to see her secret, and he must do perfect work
for the birds of the forest and field. Perfect work —
herein is the great lesson of his life.

Herein was the key-note of his ultimate success — per-
fect work. To do anything but perfect work would be
an injustice to the winged pilgrims of the air. He had
set himself to paint birds. He must be true to the bird,
and he must destroy his pictures until they presented the

truth.

2

18 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

He must know a bird and see it in its native wilds
before lie could paint it well. If one would succeed in
any art one must pay the price. Was lie willing to do
it? Yes, he would gladly forsake society and become an
inhabitant of the woods if that would make him the true
artist. He saw what his life should be, and it was his
meat and drink to pursue it.

The boy grew to young manhood and set sail for New
York — new York? He could cross the city in a short
walk then. Could he have dreamed that his statue one
day would adorn the city when it should have more than
three million inhabitants, and all because he loved Amer-
ica, did perfect work, and was true to the gift of his
soul !

Ideals are dreams. Young Audubon returned to Amer-
ica with the resolution not only to dream, but to fulfil his
father's hopes by " perfect work."

The admiral's own words in regard to life were as
follows: "Talents and knowledge added to sound mental
training, assisted by honest industry, can never fail."

In a manuscript found in a barn on Staten Island en-
titled " Myself " he relates a tale of the beginning of the
inspiration which sought to make him the protector of
birds and animals from the brutal instincts of man.

His story is as follows:

" One incident which is as perfect in my memory as
if it had occurred this very day I have thought of thou-

DECISIVE HOURS 19

sands of times since, and will now put on paper as one
of the curious things which perhaps did lead me in after
times to love birds, and to finally study them with pleas-
ure infinite. My mother had several beautiful parrots
and some monkeys; one of the latter was a full-grown
male, of a very large species. One morning, while the
servants were engaged in arranging the room I was in,
' pretty Polly ' asking for her breakfast as usual — ' Du
pain au lait pour le per roquet Mignonne ' — the man of the
woods probably thought the bird presuming upon his rights
in the scale of nature. Be this as it may, he certainly
showed his supremacy in strength over the denizen of the
air, for, walking deliberately and uprightly toward the poor
bird, he at once killed it with unnatural composure. The
sensations of my infant heart at this cruel sight were agony
to me. I prayed the servant to beat the monkey, but he,
who for some reason preferred the monkey to the parrot,
refused. I uttered long and piercing cries, my mother
rushed into the room, I was tranquilized, the monkey was
forever afterward chained, and Mignonne buried with all
the pomp of a cherished lost one.

" This made, as I have said, a very deep impression on
my youthful mind."

He sometimes destroyed life for scientific purposes, but
always with regret. The use of the camera has lessened
even such an excuse for the destruction of innocent life.
Only a mean mind and a low nature can be cruel.

20

IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

While a pupil of David lie witnessed many events that
haunted his mind in America. Let us picture one:

It was a notable day among the scientists of Paris.
Audubon was a pupil there, and the Knitter of Xantes, his
old teacher, had come to the city, and he was glad to show
her the galleries of art.

Excepting Napoleon, Alexander von Humboldt was the
most popular man in France and the most notable one in

all Europe. To meet him was to
see one who was more than a
king. Had he not made South
America known to the world,
ascended icy Chimborazo and
burning Cotopaxi, mapped the
Orinoco and the Amazon, discov-
ered the isothermal lines, the pe-
riodicity of meteors, and re-
mapped the heavens from the
high Andes?
What king, even Napoleon, had achieved such triumphs
of human knowledge? This man was to appear at the
Academy. He, too, was a lover of birds, and of all persons
in the world young Audubon wished to see the great sci-
entist whose books on the cosmos formed a library of natu-
ral history, geography, animals, birds, and plants, with more
than twelve hundred copperplates.

He was to appear at the Academy, and the port-

i^VloinAft&tOC'.

DECISIVE HOURS 21

folios of his invaluable discoveries were to be on exhibi-
tion.

Audubon, as an art student, obtained permission to see
the folios of the great savant, and he took the Knitter
with him. He loved her because she had prophesied good
of him.

The two passed along the gay streets and into the halls
made renowned by Cuvier. They entered the exhibition
room where the priceless books lay under guard.

After they had seen them they sat down together on a
seat apart from those allotted to the members of the Acad-
emy, and waited for the great Humboldt to arrive.

" He used to be a feeble boy," said the Knitter, " and
they did not regard him as very bright; but he loved plants,
and they called him the ' little apothecary.' He associates
with kings now."

" But he lived for his cosmology," said Audubon. " He
never thought of associating with kings in his early studies.
He exiled himself for the true knowledge of science."

The members were coming in, many of them wearing
decorations.

At last the hall rang with sudden applause. Humboldt
appeared, and on his heart shone a golden star that had
been given him by the Russian court. He wore the decora-
tions of greatest royal societies.

How grand he looked — that wonderful man who had
trod the summits of the Andes, sailed the unknown rivers

22 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

under the Southern Cross, and enriched the charts of the
stars !

Society people took snuff in those days, or pretended
to do so. It was a sign of hospitality among such men as
these rather than habit, and a snuff-box was passed around.

It was made of gold, and was studded with jewels. It
gleamed.

" The Emperor of Russia gives snuff-boxes to those who
most benefit mankind," said the Knitter of Nantes to young
Audubon. " It may be he will send you one some day."

The boy naturalist started.

" Why do you dream such things as that ? It is your
heart that dreams. But how dare I to say it — I see what
I would most like to be in that man."

" And ideals grow," said the Knitter. " It is like the
pattern seen by Moses on the Mount of Vision. The pat-
tern became a tabernacle, the tabernacle the temple, the
temple the church, and all was like a chart of heaven. A
man may do what he sees."

The golden snuff-box gleamed as they passed it round.
Then the speaker of the society rapped on the table, and
the snuff-box vanished from sight, and all was still.

Humboldt arose, king-decorated. Why did he thus
appear? He loved plants — the blooming earth. Was it
not as noble to love birds — the singing world?

The " little apothecary " had studied the stars from
the crystal heights of the Andes. He would one day view

DECISIVE HOURS 23

them from the Ural and Altai Mountains. It was plants

that had showed him the way.

The Knitter and the boy went out, and the good woman

dropped these golden words on the crimsoned twilight air:
" The little apothecary? He can who thinks he can."
" If he do perfect work/' answered Audubon. " Such

work I will do — there lies the merit."

CHAPTER IV

To do perfect work in his chosen field young Audubon
must live with nature. He must live so as to have clear
vision.

His father had given the child Audubon a book on
birds; it had proved a suggestion to his art, a guide-post
to the leafy and solitary way. The progress that the child
made had delighted his father, and the amiable admiral
prepared to surprise the boy with another gift that would
tend to enlarge his studies.

He gave him the privilege of a nature studio. And what
a studio it was — a plantation in the noble State of Pennsyl-
vania— Penn's wood — surrounded by gigantic woodlands,
long meadows, and towering hills, through which wound a
brook of living water, where the song-birds sang in summer
and sheltered themselves in winter, where the great branches
roofed the current and flowers carpeted the bank!

The estate had been purchased by his father in the days
of the Revolution, and he had sent an agent to develop it.

The young painter went to the bowery Pennsylvania

estate. But it was not enough that he should be shut out
24

YOUNG AUDUBON'S CAVE 25

from the great world in the Pennsylvania woods, even in
the estate. He must have further seclusion to do the most
perfect work.

There were great rocks on the woodsy estate, and in
one of them was a cave. Here the natural flowers glowed
among the green ferns.

The flycatchers seemed to own the cave; here was the
summer city of these little pilgrims of the air. The boy
Audubon wished to study these birds that came in the
spring with the tropic sun on their wings.

His coming filled the colony of birds with terror. But
Audubon knew how to make friends with the birds. Some-
thing seemed to teach him how to charm the eye and win
the affection of a bird.

So he went out to this rock room of his great Pennsyl-
vania studio, and sat down in kindly silence to see the gentle
flycatchers come and go. He made it easy for them to
fly near him, and nearer, until their tiny wings almost
fanned him as they glided by.

He watched them as they built their nests. In a week
the birds seemed to know him. They no longer made their
nests with fear.

A pair of these birds had had a nest in the cave a year
before — perhaps years before. They began to repair it.
Had they remembered this nest in their semitropical wan-
derings?

These birds seemed to have a sense of their family hap-

26 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

piness in the coming summer. They repaired the old nest
as if they were preparing for the June and July days of
their growing broods. They seemed to anticipate.

Young Audubon's heart entered into these anticipa-
tions. He watched them as they lined their nest.

One day they came back with swift wings that seemed
to tremble with joy. They had found some downy geese
feathers, possibly torn from a goose among the briers or
shed on the waters. Here was upholstery worthy of a
king. They mingled it with the down lining. Then their
notes rang out with exultant sweetness.

And young Audubon, in his leafy studio, sat and asked
the questions that we find in the book of Job: How came
these happy wings by these instincts and intuitions?
Whence came these lessons of inward wisdom more won-
derful than reason? When came they — where? There was
a divinity behind it all. Xo waters flow without a source,
no song fills the air without an origin, there is no evolution
without an evolver.

So for the sake of doing artistic justice to this bird of
the south and northern summer, Audubon became one of
the family of the pewee, and was adopted by it as a spirit
of the woods.

Think of a young man who had shared the luxuries of
a Louisiana plantation and seen the splendors of French
life finding content in a rocky cave with the pewees! But
the true artist can find his home in his purpose of life, and

YOUNG AUDUBON'S CAVE 27

is only content there. Whatever happens, he must do per-
fect work; no other work can satisfy him. This is his tide,
and the " current knows the way."

He came to Pennsylvania with the suggestion for his
life. He brought, as it were, his pattern with him. How
was he to fulfil this work which he saw in outline?

He must adopt the best methods of study that he could
command. These methods were so interesting and decisive
that we give a view of them here in his own words:

"MY STYLE OF DRAWING BIRDS

" When, as a little lad, I first began my attempts at
representing birds on paper I was far from possessing much
knowledge of their nature, and, like hundreds of others,
when I had laid the effort aside I was under the impression
that it was a finished picture of a bird because it possessed
some sort of a head and tail and two sticks in lieu of legs.
I never troubled myself with the thought that abutments
were requisite to prevent it from falling either backward
or forward; and oh, what bills and claws I did draw, to
say nothing of a perfectly straight line for a back, and a
tail stuck in anyhow, like an unshipped rudder!

" Many persons besides my father saw my miserable at-
tempts, and so many praised them to the skies that perhaps
no one was ever nearer being completely wrecked than I
by these mistaken though affectionate words. My father,
however, spoke very differently to me. He constantly im-

28 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

pressed upon me that nothing in the world possessing life
and animation was easy to imitate, and that as I grew older
he hoped I would become more and more alive to this. He
was so kind to me, and so deeply interested in my improve-
ment, that to have listened carelessly to his serious words
would have been highly ungrateful. I listened less to
others, more to him, and his words became my law."
He was growing now. He thus continues:
" The first collection of drawings I made were from
European specimens, procured by my father or myself,
and I still have them in my possession. They were all rep-
resented strictly omitliologically, which means neither more
nor less than in stiff, unmeaning profiles, such as are found
in most works published to the present day. My next set
was begun in America, and there, without my honored
mentor, I betook myself to the drawing of specimens hung
by a string tied to one foot, having a desire to show every
portion, as the wings lay loosely spread, as well as the tail.
In this manner I made some pretty fair signs for poulterers.
" One day, while watching the habits of a pair of pe-
wees at Mill Grove I looked so intently at their graceful
attitudes that a thought struck my mind like a flash of
light, that nothing, after all, could ever answer my enthusi-
astic desires to represent nature except to copy her in her
own way, alive and moving! Then I began again. On I
went, forming, literally, hundreds of outlines of my favor-
ites, the pewees; how good or bad I can not tell, but I

YOUNG AUDUBON'S CAVE 29

fancied I had mounted a step on the high pinnacle before
me. I continued for months together simply outlining
birds as I observed them, either alighted or on the wing,
but could finish none of my sketches. I procured many
individuals of different species, and laying them on the
table or on the ground, tried to place them in such atti-
tudes as I had sketched. But alas! they were dead, to all
intents and purposes, and neither wing, leg, nor tail could
I place according to my wishes. A second thought came to
my assistance. By means of threads I raised or lowered a
head, wing or tail, and by fastening the threads securely
I had something like life before me; yet much was want-
ing. When I saw the living birds I felt the blood rush
to my temples, and almost in despair spent about a month
without drawing, but in deep thought, and daily in the
company of the feathered inhabitants of dear Mill Grove.

" I had drawn from the manikin while under David,
and had obtained tolerable figures of our species through
this means, so I cogitated how far a manikin of a bird would
answer. I labored with mud, cork, and wires, and formed
a grotesque figure, which I can not describe in any other
words than by saying that when set up it was a tolerable-
looking dodo. A friend roused my ire by laughing at it
immoderately, and assuring me that if I wished to repre-
sent a tame gander it might do. I gave it a kick, broke it
to atoms, walked off, and thought again.

" Young as I was, my impatience to obtain my desire

30 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

filled my brains with many plans. I not infrequently
dreamed that I had made a new discovery; and long before
day one morning I leaped out of bed fully persuaded that
I had attained my object. I ordered a horse to be saddled,
mounted, and went of! at a gallop toward the little village
of Norristown, distant about five miles. When I arrived
there not a door was open, for it was not yet daylight.
Therefore I went to the river, took a bath, and, returning
to the town, entered the first open shop, inquired for wires
of different sizes, bought some, leaped on my steed, and was
soon again at Mill Grove. The wife of my tenant, I really
believe, thought that I was mad, as, on offering me break-
fast, I told her I only wanted my gun. I was off to the
creek, and shot the first kingfisher I met. I picked the bird
up, carried it home by the bill, sent for the miller, and bade
him bring me a piece of board of soft wood. When he re-
turned he found me filing sharp points to some pieces of
wire, and I proceeded to show him what I meant to do. I
pierced the body of the fishing bird, and fixed it on the
board; another wire passed above his upper mandible held
the head in a pretty fair attitude, smaller ones fixed the feet
according to my notions, and even common pins came to my
assistance. The last wire proved a delightful elevator to the
bird's tail, and at last there stood before me the real king-
fisher.

" Think not that my lack of breakfast was at all in my
way. No, indeed! I outlined the bird, aided by compasses

YOUNG AUDUBON'S CAVE 31

and my eves, colored it, finished it, without a thought of
hunger. My honest miller stood by the while, and was
delighted to see me pleased. This is what I shall call my
first drawing actually from nature, for even the eye of the
kingfisher was as if full of life whenever I pressed the lids
aside with my finger.

" In those happy days of my youth I was extremely
fond of reading what I still call the delightful fables of
La Fontaine. I had frequently perused the one entitled
L'hirondelle et les petits oiseaux, and thought much of the
meaning imparted in the first line, which, if I now recollect
rightly, goes on to say that ' quiconque a beaucoup vu, peut
avoir beaucoup retenu.' To me this meant that to study
nature was to ramble through her domains late and early,
and if I observed all as I should, that the memory of what
I saw would at least be of service to me.

" i Early to bed and early to rise ' was another adage
which I thought, and still think, of much value; 'tis a pity
that instead of being merely an adage it has not become a
general law. I have followed it ever since I was a child,
and am ever grateful for the hint it conveyed.

" As I wandered, mostly bent on the study of birds, and
with a wish to represent all those found in our woods to
the best of my powers, I gradually became acquainted with
their forms and habits, and the use of my wires was im-
proved by constant practice. Whenever I produced a
better representation of any species the preceding one was

32 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

destroyed, and after a time I laid down what I was pleased
to call a constitution of my manner of drawing birds,
formed upon natural principles, which I will try to put
briefly before you.

" The gradual knowledge of the forms and habits of
the birds of our country impressed me with the idea that
each part of a family must possess a certain degree of affin-
ity, distinguishable at sight in any one of them. The pe-
wees, which I knew by experience were positively fly-
catchers, led me to the discovery that every bird truly of
that genus when standing was usually in a passive atti-
tude; that they sat uprightly, now and then glancing their
eyes upward or sidewise, to watch the approach of their
insect prey; that if in pursuit of this prey their movements
through the air were in each and all of that tribe the
same, etc.

" Gallinaceous birds I saw were possessed of movements
and positions peculiar to them. Among the water birds
also I found characteristic manners. I observed that the
herons walked with elegance and stateliness; that, in fact,
every family had some mark by which it could be known;
and, after having collected many ideas and much material
of this kind, I fairly began, in greater earnest than ever,
the very collection of birds of America which is now being
published.

" The better I understood my subjects, the better I
became able to represent them in what I hoped were natu-

YOUNG AUDUBON'S CAVE 33

ral positions. The bird once fixed with wires on squares,
I studied as a lay figure before me, its nature, previously
known to me as far as habits went, and its general form
having been frequently observed. Now I could examine
more thoroughly the bill, nostrils, eyes, legs, and claws, as
well as the structure of the wings and tail; the very tongue
was of importance to me, and I thought the more I under-
stood all these particulars the better representations I made
of the originals.

" My drawings at first were made altogether in water-
colors, but they wanted softness and a great deal of finish.
For a long time I was much dispirited at this, particularly
when vainly endeavoring to imitate birds of soft and downy
plumage, such as that of most owls, pigeons, hawks, and
herons. How this could be remedied required a new train
of thought or some so-called accident, and the latter came
to my aid.

" One day, after having finished a miniature portrait of
the one dearest to me in all the world, a portion of the
face was injured by a drop of water, which dried where it
fell; and although I labored a great deal to repair the dam-
age, the blur still remained. Recollecting that when a
pupil of David I had drawn heads and figures in different-
colored chalks, I resorted to a piece of that material of
the tint required for the part, applied the pigment, rubbed
the place with a cork stump, and at once produced the

desired effect.
3

34 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

" My drawings of owls and other birds of similar plu-
mage were much improved by such applications; indeed,
after a few years of patience, some of my attempts began
almost to please me, and I have continued the same style
ever since, and that now is for more than thirty years.

" While traveling in Europe as well as America, many
persons have evinced the desire to draw birds in my man-
ner, and I have always felt much pleasure in showing it to
any one by whom I hoped ornithological delineations or
portraitures would be improved."

Such was his story, and in trying to do perfect work
his purpose in life grew. Would he ever be able to fulfil
the old Knitter's vision?

CHAPTEE V

A STRANGE ADVENTURE ON THE ICE A WEDDING JOURNEY IN

AN ARK

The beautiful farm on the Schuylkill, which the elder
Audubon had secured during the Revolution, was called
Mill Grove. The house was fine, after the Pennsylvania
Dutch manner, and we may suppose that it contained one
of the first portraits of General Washington. For just
before the terrible scenes of suffering that followed the en-
campment of the American army at Valley Forge Wash-
ington presented a portrait of himself, by an artist named
Polk, to Captain Audubon, which the captain, or " ad-
miral/' highly valued, and it is hardly probable that he
had removed it to Nantes at this time.

Near Mill Grove, and in view of it, was a mansion called
Flatland Ford, where lived Mr. William Bakewell, an Eng-
lish gentleman. One frosty morning young Audubon
chanced to meet Mr. Bakewell in the woods. The Eng-
lishman, too, loved nature, birds, and flowers. The new
country was full of promise to him.

He had a lovely daughter named Lucy, who had her

father's tastes. She heard the birds sing with delight.

35

36 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

Young Audubon fell deeply in love with Lucy the first
time he saw her, and his love never abated. He married
her in the spring of 1808, and the two left their noble
estates among the primeval trees of the Schuylkill for
Louisville, Ky.

At this period of life Audubon became fond of fine
clothes, and he afterward ridicules himself for his vanity
at this time.

His passion for nature partly abated. He drew around
him a social circle on the Schuylkill.

Among the winter sports of these days was skating,
which became a fine art.

The skating parties took place at night under full moons
and crystal stars. The air was keen, the ice-fields glittered,
and the shores were lined with firs, which gleamed. There
were air-holes in the ice, but accidents rarely happened on
that account.

One evening in the weak period of his pleasures and
fineries he led a party over the smooth ice toward the
roosting grounds of the wild duck. He fastened a white
handkerchief on a stick, and held it high in air as a signal.
Then his feet flew in graceful curves, and his voice led the
merry skaters and shouters.

The hilarity waxed warm. He increased his speed, and
the skaters who followed him flew onward after him as
for life.

Suddenly an air-hole appeared directly before him. He

A STRANGE ADVENTURE ON THE ICE 37

could not retard his pace. Down into the cold stream he
went. His comrades saw him disappear with a feeling of
horror.

Under the ice was an open space, a sort of air-chamber,
and a swift current. He was numbed by the chill, but he
felt himself borne along under the ice as by invisible arms.

" My senses," he says, " must, for aught I know, have
left me for a while."

He was thus borne along for some thirty or forty
yards, when the sky again shone above him, and he found
himself lifted up, as by arms of the air. He had come to
another air-hole. He seized the ice and crawled up. He
rose, as it were, from an icy tomb.

His companions saw him thus rising, and shouted. They
tore his clothes from him, and each gave him some part of
his own clothing.

Thus he flew back again, as it were, more swiftly than
when he came, and a curious object indeed he presented
at his own doors, filling the people with astonishment.

His wedding journey down the Ohio to Louisville was
on a kind of raft, or flatboat, called an ark. The woods
were full of spring birds, and he began to interest his bride
in his original plans of painting. Kobins flying north must
have haunted the early woods with their songs. River
birds were everywhere. His bride entered into his dreams
of becoming a great naturalist.

The Knitter of Nantes was not here to encourage him,

38 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

but a prophecy had gone forth from Mill Grove that the
young bridegroom would become a naturalist. Xothing
helps one like good prophecies — words of appreciation
build.

He says of his April wedding journey:

" We floated down the Ohio in a flatboat. We had
many goods, and opened a large store in Louisville, but birds
were birds then as now, and my thoughts were ever turning
toward them as my greatest delight."

In 1809 Victor Audubon was born, who would as a
boy become his father's companion in the woods, and later
in life complete his father's work.

CHAPTER VI

A PEDLER WITH A FACE LIKE A BIRD

Audubox was on the verge of manhood.

This was the happy period of his life. The sowing
in the springtime and the joy of anticipation are inspir-
ing. He was fulfilling the divine law within him. He
knew not that any other man in America had a purpose
like this.

But there was one. His introduction to Audubon was
in this singular manner:

Audubon, after studying the birds of the Pennsylvania
woods, went from the regions of the Schuylkill to Louis-
ville, Ivy., then a pioneer town. Here one day a strange
face appeared to him — a man with a face like a bird.

This man had a long, hooked nose, keen and restless
eyes, high cheek-bones, and a singularly beak-like visage.
One might think that his face was a birthmark.

He came out of the woods as from an eagle's nest. He
said to Audubon:

" I have a work that I wish to show you. I hear that

you are interested in birds.''

" Do you take an interest in birds? " asked Audubon.

39

40 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

" I give my life to the study of birds. I picture birds,
and I have a collection of pictures which I wish to sell. I
want your subscription to my book on birds."

Audubon was greatly surprised. He may not at that
time have definitely planned his own great work on birds
to be sold by subscriptions. But here was a man who had
his own passion for revealing to the world the birds of the
American forests.

" Who are you, stranger? Where were you born? "

" At Paisley, in Scotland, in 1776. My people were
simple folk, and they wished me to become a minister. I
was apprenticed to a weaver. I used to write poetry and
sell my poems by subscription, and I knew Robert Burns,
and my poems were often taken for his. Poetry kept me
poor, and I became despondent; so I came to the New
World, and worked in a printer's shop in Philadelphia.

" There, as I wandered along the Schuylkill, I found
something about which the great world did not know.
Birds. They are poets of the air, poets of the trees, and
my heart went out to the birds. Then I became a pedler,
and wandered through the forests from town to town,
studying the ways of birds. Birds can sing the poetry
that I can not write.

" I made up for my poor education by teaching. Then
I studied botany. I visited the Mohawk Valley. I found
new birds. I heard new songs. I began to paint birds. I
have printed a collection of bird pictures, and am trying

A PEDLER WITH A FACE LIKE A BIRD

41

to sell it. I hope you will help me in the work by sub-
scribing to one of my books."

Audubon saw his own spirit and purpose in this strange
forest pedler and wandering teacher. To use Audubon's
own words:

"How well I remember him as he walked up to me!
His long, rather hooked nose,
the keenness of his eyes, and his
prominent cheek - bones stamped
his countenance with a peculiar
character."

Audubon was then thirty
years of age.

" I too," he said to the wan-
dering lover of birds, " am en-
gaged in the same studies as your-
self. Let me examine your col-
lection." He was surprised to

find in this collection some birds that he had never seen.
The man's name was Alexander Wilson.

He lent to Mr. Wilson some of his own plates, and the
latter went on his way. This man published a notable work
on American Ornithology and died a martyr to science.
He slept in the woods and lived on fruits and berries, and
brought upon himself a mortal sickness by following a rare
bird through a river. He never married.

He may have suggested to Audubon the method of

42 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

painting a great work and selling it by personal subscrip-
tions. We do not know but Audubon followed this
method.

It is often the case that two people who are entire
strangers to each other are found to be pursuing the same
studies in a new field. Wilson did a noble work as a nat-
uralist, but he was surpassed by the " American wood-
man " whom he met at Louisville. Each had the genius of
the woods, and heard in the songs of birds divine music
and the true beating of nature's heart.

CHAPTEK VII

A HERBMAN OF SINGLE SIGHT WHO WAS LAUGHED AT THE

HERB DOCTOR

The Pioneers of Science in America, published in 1896,
has done justice to a most remarkable man who came to
meet Audubon in a queer way indeed, while Audubon was
living in Kentucky. After the manner that Audubon
trained his eye to discover new birds and new habits of
birds, this man educated himself to find new plants. To
find a new medicinal herb filled him with such delight that
he would leap about with the simplicity of a monkey or
a boy.

As Audubon was wandering one day along a river, peer-
ing into the boughs for birds, he suddenly beheld this curi-
ous-looking man landing from a boat with a great bundle
of herbs on his back. He stopped to wonder at the herb-
man, when the latter ran toward him, saying:

" Say, good man, can you direct me to the house of
Mr. Audubon? He studies birds; I study plants; we both
love nature."

" I am Mr. Audubon — probably the man whom you

seek. I will lead you to my house."

43

44 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

The herbman clapped his hands together with a child-
ish delight, and said:

" I have a letter of introduction to you."
The herbman handed the letter to Audubon, and the
latter read it to his great astonishment. It was as follows:

"My dear Audubon: I send you an odd fish, which

may prove to be undescribed. If so, I hope that you will

let me have an account in your next letter.

" Believe me, always your friend,

" B."

" But," asked Audubon, " where is the odd fish that our
friend has sent me ? "

" I am that odd fish, Mr. Audubon."

" You ! Let me send to your boat for your bag-
gage! "

" Bless you, I have no baggage only what I carry on my
back. I am a botanist. I am always looking for some-
thing new."

At home with Audubon, the " odd fish " began to ex-
amine the naturalist's portfolios for a new herb.

His eye fell upon one that he thought was new. The
sight filled him with delight.

" That herb is not new," said Audubon. " It grows
here."

"ffo, no!"

" I will show you one to-morrow."

A HERBMAX OF S1XGLE SIGHT WHO WAS LAUGHED AT 45

" ^ot to-morrow," said the enthusiast. " Let us go out
and find it now."

Audubon led him to the riverside. When the " odd
fish " saw the plant he acted like a madman.

" Plucking the plants mercilessly one after another,"
says Audubon, " he danced and hugged them in his arms
and seemed in a delirium of delight."

There were queer times in Audubon's home while this
trained plant-finder remained there.

As the " odd fish " was discoursing on the strength
of the beetle one evening, he said :

" A little flying beetle could draw that candlestick and
candle along the table."

" I would like to see it done," said Audubon.

His visitor attached a tiny beetle to the ring of the
candlestick. The little insect drew it along the table until
the candlestick fell over the edge of the table to the floor,
when the scarabseus flew away.

One summer night some bats entered the botanist's
room, and he thought that he saw among them some new
species. Xot a moment must be lost; he must secure a
specimen at once. The world of science was waiting for
it. But how was he to capture a bat?

Audubon describes the amazing conduct of the man in
this new frenzy of delight :

" After a day's pursuit of natural-history studies, the
stranger was accommodated with a bed in an attic room.

46 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

We had all retired to rest; every person I imagined was
in deep slumber save myself, when of a sudden I heard a
great uproar in the naturalist's room. I got up, reached
the place in a few moments, and opened the door, when,
to my astonishment, I saw my guest running naked, hold-
ing the handle of my favorite violin, the body of which
he had battered to pieces against the walls in attempting
to kill the bats which had entered by the open window,
probably attracted by the insects flying around his candle.
I stood amazed, and he continued jumping and running
round and round until he was fairly exhausted, when he
begged me to procure one of the animals for him, as he
felt convinced they belonged to a ' new species.' Although
I was convinced of the contrary, I took up the bow of my
demolished Cremona, and administering a smart tap to each
of the bats as it came up, soon got specimens enough. The
war ended, I again bade him good night, but could not help
observing the state of the room. It was strewed with
plants, which had been previously arranged with care."

Audubon also describes his visit with the herbman to
a cane-brake:

" The cane-brake is composed of a dense growth of
canes, measuring twenty or thirty feet in height, and
packed so closely that a man's body requires to be forced
between the shafts of the canes. An undergrowth of
plants and trailing climbers further prevents progression,
which has to be accelerated by pushing the back between

A HERBMAN OF SINGLE SIGHT WHO WAS LAUGHED AT 47

the canes. Game of all sorts frequent the cane-brakes, in
which traveling is rendered disagreeably exciting by the
presence of bears, panthers, snakes, and serpents [sic] . The
cane-brakes are sometimes set fire to, and the water col-
lected in the separate joints explodes like a shell. The con-
stant fusillade occasioned by such explosions in the midst of
a conflagration has occasioned the flight of parties not con-
versant with the cause, and who believed that the Indians
were advancing with volleys of musketry. I had deter-
mined that my companion should view a cane-brake in all
its perfection, and leading him several miles in a direct
course came upon as fine a sample as existed in that part
of the country. We entered, and for some time proceeded
without much difficulty, as I led the way and cut down the
canes which were most likely to incommode him. The diffi-
culties gradually increased, so that we were presently
obliged to turn our backs and push our way through.
" After a while we came upon the top of a fallen
tree, which so obstructed our passage that we were on the
eve of going round, instead of thrusting ourselves through
among the branches, when from its bed in the center of
the tangled mass forth rushed a bear with such force that
my friend became terror-struck, and in his haste to escape
made a desperate attempt to run, but fell among the canes
in such a way that he was completely jammed. I could
not refrain from laughing at the ridiculous exhibition he
made, but my gaiety was not very pleasing to the dis- .

48 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

comfited naturalist. A thunder-storm with a deluge of
rain completed our experience of the cane-brake, and my
friend begged to be taken out. This could only be accom-
plished by crawling in a serpentine manner out of the
jungle, from which the naturalist was delighted to escape,
perfectly overcome with fatigue and fear. The eccentric
was more than gratified with the exploit, and soon after
left my abode without explanation or farewell. A letter
of thanks, however, showed that he had enjoyed the hos-
pitality, and was not wanting in gratitude."

This singular man who had trained his eye to see what
was new in the botanical world was Constantine Samuel
Rafinesque. He was born in Constantinople in 1783.
Though born a Greek, he was brought up in Marseilles.
He read books of travel and began to study plants, and
at the age of eleven he made a herbarium. He resolved
to become a merchant, as that would enable him to travel
and to see plants by the way. He came to America
at the time of the French Revolution, and saw what a
pioneer botanist could do for the new and wonderful
country. He developed a passion to make American medi-
cal plants known to the world. In his wanderings among
the Indians he became persuaded that the American Indians
were descendants of the lost Israelitish tribes, who crossed
Siberia to the New World, possibly by Bering Strait. He
became the author of " Medical Flora of the United
States." He died in poverty at Philadelphia in 1840, but

THE HERB DOCTOR 49

his works on conehology were republished in 1864, and
what was valuable in his researches received the attention
of Prof. Asa Gray. He lived for a time at Robert Owen's
communistic settlement at New Harmony, Ind.

He wras a fanciful man, of a child nature, but that eye
turned for one thing rendered the world great service as
a pioneer botanist in America. Laughed at though he was,
Rafinesque was a hero of science. Yet no man seems to
know the place of his grave.

THE HERB DOCTOR

Both Audubon and Wilson liked to meet native natu-
ralists. Let us tell you a story of Wilson.

Some miles from a forest inn there dwelt a hermit.
He had turned away from the world to find relief from the
disappointments of a too sensitive nature in the voices of
the solitudes. He seems to have believed what was good
in all the plans of nature, and he had left mankind in
order to study the beneficence of God among the animals,
birds, and insects.

They called him the Solitary.

He lived in a hut made by his own hands. It was near
the mouth of a cave to which he could retire, and in it
there were to be heard echoes loud and long.

He was a philosopher. He came out of the woods a
few times a year to the tavern store to purchase a few nec-
essary things. Wilson, the gentle ornithologist, heard of

50 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

him, and had an interview with him, for he thought a
man who had so long lived in the woods must have a
very intelligent knowledge of the habits of the winged
creatures, and that he could obtain very useful informa-
tion from him. On one side of the simple cabin rose
a large mountain, around which the storms gathered.
The man had had no education in books, and he deter-
mined to study the book of nature as a revelation of
God.

" He appears to be a stranger," said Wilson, " as one
of the early inhabitants of the earth."

" Within a stone's throw of his hut," he continues, " a
deep enormous chasm extends up the mountain for more
than four miles, through which a large body of water surges
in loud and successive falls."

The hermit was a botanist, and loved to gather herbs
and to study their uses and beneficial effects.

He studied the chemistry of the soil, and the effects of
different soils on grains.

He learned how to doctor sick animals. People from
a distance £ame to him to treat disabled horses and oxen.
The hermit was ready to go on such errands; his heart was
in such work.

As a result of these studies in the woods he came to
see what useful work the birds did in the interest of the
gardener. He also saw the value of insects as purifiers of
the air.

THE HERB DOCTOR 51

We have seldom met in books a more beautiful char-
acter than this solitary man as described by Wilson.

We must give you a passage by Wilson on this bene-
factor, as the former found him. It will bear reading
twice :

" About six months ago I went to pay him a visit, along
with an intimate friend, no less remarkable for a natural
curiosity. On arriving at his little hut we found, to our no
small disappointment, that he was from home. As my
friend, however, had never been in that part of the country
before, I conducted him to the glen, to take a view of some
of the beautifully romantic scenes and wild prospects that
this place affords. We had not proceeded far along the
bottom of the vale when, hearing a rustling among the
branches above our heads, I discovered our hoary botanist,
with his basket, passing along the brow of a rock that hung
almost over the center of the stream. Having pointed him
out to my companion, we were at a loss for some time
to bring about a conversation with him. Having, how-
ever, a flute in my pocket, of which music he is exceed-
ingly fond, I began a few airs, which, by the sweetness
of the echoes, was heightened into the most enchanting
melody.

"This had its desired effect; and our little man stood
beside us, with his basket in his hand. On stopping at
his approach, he desired us to proceed, complimented us
on the sweetness of our music, expressed the surprise he

52 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

was in on hearing it, and leaning his basket on an old
trunk, listened with all the enthusiasm of rapture. He
then, at our request, presented us with a sight of the herbs
he had been collecting, and entertained us with a narrative
of the discoveries he had made in his frequent researches
through the vale, ' which,' said he, ' contains treasures that
few know the value of.'

" Seeing us pleased with this discourse, he launched forth
into a more particular account of the vegetables, reptiles,
wild beasts, and insects that frequented the place, and with
much judgment explained their various properties. ' Were
it not/ says he, ' for the innumerable millions of insects,
I believe dead carcasses and other putrid substances might
have dreadful effects; but no sooner does a carcass begin to
grow putrid than these insects, led by the smell, flock to the
place, and there deposit their eggs, which in a few days pro-
duce such a number of maggots that the carcass is soon
consumed. While they are thus employed below, the
parent flies are no less busy in devouring the noxious
vapors that incessantly ascend; thus the air by these insects
is kept sweet and pure, till the storms of winter render their
existence unnecessary, and at once destroy them. And
Heaven, that has formed nothing in vain, exhibits these
things for our contemplation, that we may adore that all-
bounteous Creator who makes even the most minute and
seemingly destructive creatures subservient to the good
of man.'

THE HERB DOCTOR 53

" In such a manner did this poor and illiterate peasant
moralize on the common occurrences of nature; these glori-
ous and invaluable truths did he deduce from vile reptiles,
the unheeded insect, the simple herb that lies neglected
or is trodden under foot as useless and offensive; and what
friend to mankind does not, on contemplating this hoary
rustic's story, fondly wish, with its writer, that learning
had lent its aid to polish a genius that might have one day
surprised the world with the glorious blaze of a Locke or a
Xewton?"

At the close of an autumn day this beneficent old
man came to the Forest Inn to exchange some herbs
for things he would need in the approaching cold
weather.

Having met AVilson, and read in him the true charac-
ter of a naturalist, he cherished the memory of the poet
naturalist in his solitude, and when he heard that another
naturalist, a young man by the name of Audubon, was
searching the woods from river to river for the same pur-
pose that he himself had in going into the woods to live,
he hoped he would meet him some day; he thought that
they must be kindred souls.

The meeting, as we well suppose, came on this visit to
the inn. While he was having his herbs and barks weighed
a vigorous young man came down into the store from the
upper rooms.

" This is Audubon, the naturalist,'7 said Calvert, the

54 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

innkeeper, to him, adding, " The herb-gatherer is something
of a naturalist himself."

" I am something of a student of nature," said the herb-
gatherer. " They call me old because I am a man of the
woods. I am not very old. I am glad to find you study-
ing the woods. I hope that you will come to see, like me,
that all things were created for some good purpose."

The two sat down under the trees in the early afternoon
and talked until sundown.

" I have given up everything for science," said Audu-
bon. " People say that I lack common sense; there are
few who believe in me."

Audubon went to his room, and Calvert came out to
talk with the hermit.

" He has given up everything," said the hermit, re-
ferring to Audubon. " He can see clear. Let me prophesy
— he will one day become an interpreter of the woods, and
his influence will grow when all the people who laugh at
him are forgotten.

" I shall come to the store more often to hear the papers
read, and I will hear from him again some day. That man
is living to do good in the animal world. The forests call
him to explain them. He wishes to leave all dumb life
better for his existence. Mark my words, you will hear
of that man again."

" No, my good woodman, he will never attain to any
success. What is there in him to give him power? "

THE HERB DOCTOR 55

" Ah," said the hermit, " success lies in the true pur-
pose of life. A man may gain wealth and be a failure; he
may have popular reputation and lack worth; and he may
be moral with these, and also benevolent for selfish ends,
and yet not be a success. Success lies in good influence,
and if a man have good influence he will be moral.

" The one requirement of true success is that a man
should be an influence for good in the world, and make all
things better and happier. Audubon has this success in his
purpose in life, and he will have it in the results of his life.
A man's harvests show the life that he has lived."

" But it will be a wonder indeed if this man who paints
wrens and lets them go again ever has any influence be-
yond his own nose."

" He paints wrens and lets them go again? Therein lies
a secret that you do not yet see."

CHAPTEE VIII

THE GENIUS THAT SEES THE STORY OF THE FOREST INN AND

THE WREN

The father of Audubon, the French admiral, left a
goodly estate in France, but the French members of the
family stood in need of it, and Audubon surrendered his
claim upon it under a sense of duty, as the other heirs
needed the property more than he.

" I will go into the world conscience free," he rea>
soned.

The old schoolmistress, the Knitter of Mantes, rejoiced
at the decision. She saw the secret webs of life.

" A clear conscience makes clear sight," said she. " La^
forest [Audubon's home name] must become a great natu-
ralist, and nature does not reveal her deepest meanings to
any mind that is clouded with any specks of character.
Selfishness is a speck on the eyes, as anything is that does
not leave the conscience free to see. Laforest is pursuing
the right course if he wishes to be a student of nature. It
it the giving up of oneself that makes the wings of con-
science free."

Audubon felt the force and truth of this principle of
56

THE GENIUS THAT SEES 57

art. His friends, too, saw in his giving up the legacy the
gravitation of an honest purpose.

The principle of keeping his conscience free for its own
sake and for the sake of the power it gave him as an artist
continued through life.

In Henderson, Ky., he entered into a business that
proved disastrous. He failed. He could have kept some
part of his property by evasions.

To do so would be to lower his self-respect and be
unjust to the morale of his art. He might be empty-
handed, but he must have a clear vision. He must see
nature without any obscurity. He must do just right, or
fail to rise to the highest interpretation of the natural
world.

If my reader is an artist or desiring to be one, he should
note this principle, as illustrated by Audubon.

The following paragraphs from his own journal give a
view of that inner obedience to spiritual law which alone
can make a man great:

" From this date my pecuniary difficulties daily in-
creased. I had heavy bills to pay which I could not meet
or take up. The moment that this became known to the
world around me, that moment I was assailed by thousands
of invectives; the once wealthy man was now nothing. I
parted with every particle of property I had to my credit-
ors, keeping only the clothes that I wore, my original draw-
ings, and my gun.

58 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

" Finally, I paid every bill, and at last left Henderson,
probably forever, without a dollar in my pockets.

" My plantation in Pennsylvania had been sold, and
nothing was left me but my humble talents.

" Were these talents to remain dormant under such
exigencies? Was I to see my beloved Lucy and children
suffer for want of bread in the abundant State of Ken-
tucky? Was I to repine because I acted like an honest
man?

" No. I had talents, and to them I instantly re-
sorted."

His gifts had been made more valuable by this integrity
of character. They had grown. He went to nature with
a clear vision, and his noble wife, who had been brought
up in luxury, now with an infant in her arms, sustained
him in what he had done.

He turned his gifts to portrait painting for the sake of
his family, but he suddenly discovered a new power in
his work.

He thus speaks of this enlargement of his talents in his
journals:

" My drawings of birds were not neglected meantime.
I would even give up drawing a portrait, the profits of
which would have supplied the wants of my family for a
week or more, to represent a little citizen of the feathered
tribe.

" Nay, my dear sons, I thought that I now drew birds

The Bird of Washington.

THE GENIUS THAT SEES 59

far better than I had ever done before misfortune intensi-
fied, or at least developed, my abilities"

Genius grows through moral power, and is diminished
by anything that weakens force of character.

Audubon was laughed at.

" ISTo one but my wife and sons believed in me," he
says in his journals.

When he came to a cabin or an inn and told his story
of painting winks went around.

" Hunting for nothing," said the hunters. " Catching
birds that one can not eat," said the farmers. Men made
merry over him when he came to the stores to buy powder
and supplies for his long journeys.

It was at the close of a long summer day and the set-
ting sun was burning through the trees.

A party of farmers had gathered on the steps of the
grocery store of the Forest Inn, under the oaks, when Cal-
vert looked up the high hill near the store and said to the
others:

" There comes Audubon down the hill; been out
to hunt a chickadee or a wren. Of all the lazy, shiftless,
no-account men that I ever saw or heard of, he is the
beater! "

The men looked up the hill.

" Look at him now! " continued Calvert. " He is bring-
ing home one little bird, and that a live one. He has failed
in business in Kentucky, and they say that he gave up his

60 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

property in France to his relatives, and that his wife, who
was born in a house as good as a palace, has to teach for
a living. That man must be crazy."

" But there is one thing in which he never fails," said
one of the men; " it is in painting birds. Did you ever see
one of his painted birds? "

" Xo ; but here he comes, with a little bird in his hand.
Just look at him! See how pleased he looks! If he had
brought home a diamond he would not be more happy.
How queerly constituted some folks are ! "

Audubon came to the resting-place on the steps of the
store under the oaks. He hardly noticed the men.

"What have you got now, Audubon?" asked Cal-
vert. " I see — one wee little mountain wren. I de-
clare, if I hadn't a scent for some bigger game than
that I would go and put my head in soak and curl up
and die. What good does it do to paint birds? Suppose
you could paint all the birds in America, what good would
it do?"

" I would have painted the birds of America."

" But it would bring you no money."

" But I would have painted the birds."

" And your family would be kept poor."

" But I would have lived my true life."

" Well, yes; but what a life to live! Go out as you do
into the forests, and lie down and doze under a tree, then
see a little no-account bird come along, and study him! See

THE GENIUS THAT SEES 61

him hop this way and that way, and weave his nest and
line it, and sing this note and that note — and all for what?
To be remembered only as a vagabond."

" You may hear from me and my work again some
day."

" Your work! What work did you ever do? You give
away your property and fail, and then leave your wife and
lie about under trees and catch birds and paint 'em. I
wouldn't give one penny for all the painted birds in
America ! "

Audubon did not seem to hear these last remarks; if
he did, he did not heed them. His eye was bent on the
little fluttering bird, whom he addressed:

" I will make a sketch of you right off now, and then
I will let you go to your mate in the mountains."

He started to go up-stairs.

" Mr. Audubon," said the store-tavern keeper, " your
supper has been waiting for you an hour."

" I can not stop for supper now."

"But the table can not wait; the maids have other
work to do."

" Well, never mind. What does it matter whether I
have my supper to-night or no? Tell them to clear away
the dishes. See what I have found — a real mountain wren !
I have been looking for a specimen like this for years. The
world shall see it some day."

Audubon passed up the stairs to his room.

62 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

"The world!" said Calvert. " He said 'the world.'
What can that man be thinking about? "

The men echoed, " The world! "

" He thinks/' said Calvert, " that the world will one
day see that poor little wren — the King of England, it may
be, < The world ' ! "

" And Emperor of all the Russias," added another.
" What an imagination that man must have ! "

" The Emperor Rushia ? " echoed the men. All laughed
gaily, then each one went his way.

We shall return to the Eorest Inn again.

Victor? He pursued his way alone; he sought few
pleasures, he made few friends. He saw his father's great
purpose in life, and he gave his own life to that — his heart,
his thought, and all the best that was in him. He lived in
his purpose and was happy.

He heard his father ridiculed, sneered at. What of
that? All people of high and original ideas have been
laughed at — all scientists, like Eranklin, all people of
original views and purposes in the long past.

Such are called visionary. " Where there is no vision
the people perish."

CHAPTER IX

VICTOR, THE SON OF AUDUBON FATHER AND SON IN THE

FOREST FOREST TALES PARTRIDGE LAND AN OLD KEN-
TUCKY FOURTH OF JULY

Audubon was a loving father. He had two sons, who
became companions of his long journeys, John and Victor,
and one day he said to Victor, a boy just entering his teens:

" I am about to make a long journey of two or three
hundred miles along the Ohio and Green Rivers. The very
sight of the Ohio River fills me with joy."

" But you will not go alone? " asked his son.

" I have been alone on many a journey as long and
hard."

" But I was a child then. Xow I am a boy. I want
to go with you. I can walk."

" We will have to share the living of the woods," said
Audubon; " pork and grated corn and beds of leaves."

" That does not matter if I can be with you."

They set out, if not hand in hand yet heart in heart,
Audubon stopping to listen to the notes of every new song-
bird that appeared among the tangled boughs and cane-
brakes.

63

£4 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

All houses and cabins, as well as taverns, were opened
to travelers in those rude times.

He describes this journey in a most picturesque way.
At one point he says: " Thousands of robins were flying
southward in the calm clear air; the Ohio was spread before
us as smooth as a mirror, and into its waters we leaped with
pleasure."

So they journeyed on, father and son, each sharing
each other's delight in nature.

Queer people they met, but always people with open
hearts and doors.

Among the cabins that they visited, stopping there for
food and lodging, was one which Audubon calls the lazy
man's. He says:

" On arriving at the cabin of the lazy man, blessed with
an industrious wife and six healthy children, all of them
laboring for his support, we were welcomed by a woman
whose manners and speech indicated that she belonged to
the better class of people.

" Better breakfast we never ate. The bread was made
of new corn ground on a tin grater [think of the time when
families grated their own meal!], the chickens were cooked
by the daughters; coffee was added, and my son had fresh
milk.

" The kind woman, who held her babe against her
bosom, seemed delighted to see how heartily we ate."

It probably did her good to so enter into a traveler's

VICTOR, THE SON OF AUDUBON 65

enjoyment. Audubon gave a dollar to a chubby little
urchin, which must have filled the child's eyes with wonder.

The two went away, the children of the family after
breakfast went to their work, and the lazy man went to
the door to smoke his corn-cob pipe.

There were many families of this description on the
Ohio at the time — families in which the wife and children
made up for the indolence of the father, and sometimes
vice versa. But the children of these mismatched families
often turned out well; the fact that their pride was hurt
seemed to give them energy.

Victor at last became exhausted with his journey. Says
Audubon :

" My son became faint. Dear boy, never can I forget
him as he lay down on a log, large tears rolling down his
cheeks. I bathed his temples."

A fine turkey cock ran by.

" Look there, Victor! " said Audubon.

The boy saw the bird and gave a leap. He called into
himself new energy and ran after the bird. "When he came
back he was so invigorated that he was able to take up his
journey.

Day by day the sun rose in splendor, and " the Ohio
reflected its beams."

So they journeyed on amid brakes and barrens, meeting
strange people in solitary cabins.

Audubon, on a like journey with his son, gives the fol-

6Q IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

lowing picture of the hospitality at an old pioneer's cabin,
ending with an anecdote comical indeed:

" Off we went at a round trot, dancing in the cart like
peas in a sieve. The road, which was just wide enough to
allow us to pass, was full of deep ruts and covered here
and there with trunks and stumps, over all which we were
hurried. Our conductor, Mr. Flint, the landlord of the
tavern, boasting of his perfect knowledge of the country,
undertook to drive us by a short cut, and we willingly con-
fided ourselves to his management. So we jogged along,
now and then deviating to double the fallen timber. Day
commenced with promise of fine weather, but several nights
of white frost having occurred, a change was expected. To
our sorrow, the change took place long before we got to the
road again. The rain fell in torrents; the thunder bel-
lowed; the lightning blazed. It was now evening, but the
storm had brought perfect night, black and dismal. Our
cart had no cover. Cold and wet, we sat silent and melan-
choly, with no better expectation than that of passing the
night under the little shelter the cart could afford us.

" To stop was considered worse than to proceed. So
we gave the reins to the horses, with some faint hope that
they would drag us out of our forlorn state. Of a sudden
the steeds altered their course, and soon after we perceived
the glimmer of a faint light in the distance, and almost at
the same moment heard the barking of dogs. Our horses
stopped by a high fence and fell a-neighing, while I hal-

VICTOR, THE SON OF AUDUBON 67

looed at such a rate that an answer was speedily obtained.
The next moment a flaming pine torch crossed the gloom,
and advanced to the spot where we stood. The negro boy
who bore it, without waiting to question us, enjoined us to
follow the fence, and said that master had sent him to show
the strangers to the house. AVe proceeded, much relieved,
and soon reached the gate of a little yard, in which a small
cabin was perceived.

" A tall, fine-looking young man stood in the open door,
and desired us to get out of the cart and walk in. We did
so, when the following conversation took place:

" ' A bad night this, strangers. How came you to be
along the fence? You certainly must have lost your way,
for there is no public road within twenty miles.'

" i Ay/ answered Mr. Flint, i sure enough we lost our
way. But, thank God! we have got to a house; and thank
you for your reception.'

" ' Reception ! ' replied the woodsman. i No very great
thing, after all. You are all here safe, and that's enough.
— Eliza,' turning to his wife, ■ see about some victuals for
the strangers. — And you, Jupiter,' addressing the negro
lad, ' bring some wood and mend the fire. — Eliza, call the
boys up, and treat the strangers the best way you can. —
Come, gentlemen, pull off your wet clothes, and draw to
the fire. — Eliza, bring some socks and a shirt or two.'

" For my part, kind reader, knowing my countrymen
as I do, I was not much struck at all this; but my son, who

08 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

had scarcely reached the age of thirteen, drew near to me,
and observed how pleasant it was to meet with such good
people.

" To all appearance the united ages of the pair under
whose roof we had found shelter did not exceed two score.
Their means seemed barely sufficient to render them com-
fortable, but the generosity of their young hearts had no
limits. The cabin was new. The logs of which it was
formed were all of the tulip-tree, and were nicely pared.
Every part was beautifully clean. Even the coarse slabs
that formed the floor looked as if newly washed and dried.
Sundry gowns and petticoats of substantial homespun hung
from the logs that formed one of the sides of the cabin,
while the other was covered with articles of male attire.
A large spinning-wheel, with rolls of wool and cotton, occu-
pied one corner. In another was a small cupboard, con-
taining the little stock of new dishes, cups, plates, and tin
pans. The table was small also, but quite new, and as
bright as polished walnut could be. The only bed that I
saw was of domestic manufacture, and the counterpane
proved how expert the young wife was at spinning and
weaving.

" Supper over, we all neared the fire, and engaged in
conversation. At length our kind host addressed his wife
as follows: ' Eliza, the gentlemen would like to lie down,
I guess. What sort of bed can you fix for them ? ? Eliza
looked up with a smile, and said : c Why, Willy, we will

VICTOR, THE SON OF AUDUBON 69

divide the bedding and arrange half on the floor, on which
we can sleep very well, and the gentlemen will have the
best we can spare them.' To this arrangement I immedi-
ately objected, and proposed lying on a blanket by the fire;
but neither Willy nor Eliza would listen. So they arranged
a part of their bedding on the floor, on which, after some
debate, we at length settled. The negroes were sent to
their own cabin, the young couple went to bed, and Mr.
Flint lulled us all asleep with a long story intended to show
us how passing strange it was that he should have lost
his way."

Victor returned from such adventures exhausted, but it
gave him the hardy experience for other excursions.

He followed his father with enthusiasm and his love
of the forest grew. The wood folk became his companions
— the mountaineers, the stage-coach men, the taverners,
and the little animal people in fur.

He loved to lie under the sunset trees after a meal out
of their traveling pouch, and to hear his father relate
stories of his adventures when the latter had been wan-
dering alone. He delighted also in asking questions. In
this way he learned ornithology.

" Did any one ever see a partridge drumming? " asked
Victor of his father one day.

America may be said to be Partridge Land. The whir
of the short wings of the partridge is heard everywhere
in the forest from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The bird is

70 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

alert, beautiful, a lover of her family. She feeds on ber-
ries, is true to her nest, and has no habits that are detri-
mental to man. She is a game bird, very wild, but can be
domesticated when hatched by a common hen and reared
among her brood. But the young bird so reared still seeks
the woods. The old New England farmers used to say that
" the partridge and the tongue can never be tamed."

The question that Victor asked of his father has been
asked by thousands of boys who live near the woods.

Let us imagine a scene such as has happened a thousand
times. A cloud is slowly darkening the sky. There is a
deep stillness in the air. The robins are singing — chirrup-
ing. The birds fly restless from tree to tree.

Hark! A dead sound seems to beat the air. It is in
the near woods, and is repeated.

" It is going to rain," says the farmer. " Hear the par-
tridge drum."

" How does he drum? " asks the farm-boy.

" No one knows; few people ever saw a partridge drum.
It is a forest mystery."

Such is the farmhouse legend.

Audubon and Victor studied the habits of the par-
tridge.

" The partridge does not drum in captivity," said Audu-
bon ; " and did you ever see a partridge near you except
gliding along in thick bushes like the wind, or rising on
wings which you heard rather than saw? "

Mocking-birds defending their nests.

VICTOR, THE SON OF AUDUBON 71

" I must see a partridge drum/' said Victor. " You
have?"

" Not in the way that I wish to see the movement/' said
Audubon.

" On what do partridges drum? "

" The farmers say that they drum on a stump. They
have quick ears — they hear steps at a long distance. They
stand on stumps and listen. They usually drum when the
air is perfectly still, and when no one is near."

"I will discover the method of the bird; I will see a
partridge drum, if I have to lie in the bushes all day."

" If you ever find a partridge drumming in clear view,
you will be a clever boy — smarter than any farmer lad
or young hunter that I have ever seen. That is a sight
that we will not be likely to see together — but we may."

Victor began to study the habits of the wonderful bird.
They would sometimes " scare up " a partridge from her
nest. The bird builds her nest in hidden and protected
places, among dead leaves and grasses of her own color, and
if disturbed when setting, will silently and quickly remove
her eggs to another place.

She will defend her young with great courage, and by
strategy.

She is a kind of mesmerist, or hypnotist.

When she is surprised with her brood, she will utter a
pitiful cry, and seem to be struggling helplessly on the
ground as with a broken wing. Or she will wheel about

72 INT THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

the feet of the intruder in a circle so as to draw and hold
his eye, her form quivering. While she is executing these
confusing movements, her brood will disappear, and then
she will whir away.

One day a partridge seemed to fall dead before them
and then to whirl like a dervish.

" The effect of the defensive movements of the par-
tridge's wings, when her young are hiding, is a mother's
instinct that is a wonder," said Victor. " See her wings
quiver as if wounded."

In a moment she rose, and was gone.

They searched to find one of her brood, but the cunning
little partridges seemed to have turned into dead grasses
and leaves.

" The instinct that leads the little partridge to render
itself invisible is as wonderful as that of the magnetic en-
chantment of the mother's wing," said Victor. " I will
take a day before the coming of rain, when the quails say
' More wet,' and I will hide in some field of short bushes
where there are stumps and will see a partridge drum."

" She carries her drum with her," said Audubon.

They heard the partridge drumming at a little distance
wherever they went. Victor sought to see how it was done
with still feet, but the bird's ears were as quick as his feet
were still. He would always tread upon some dead stick
which would break and give warning. Still, he was resolved
to see the wonder of the forests. In this way the father

VICTOR, THE SON OF AUDUBON 73

and son studied birds together. Something new almost
dailv would awaken their curiosity, and it became a matter
of life to them to follow it up, and the wonder of bird-life
grew. Victor was becoming another Wilson.

The partridge builds her nest in hiding, but the hiding-
place is often near roads and lanes as though there might
be protection in the open, as a good woman once hid her
money in an. open jar on the shelf. No one would look
for it there. The bird can be captured by the hand when
brooding or fighting. She will allow the scythe to strike
her in the grass of the hay-field.

One day they heard a partridge drumming. Victor
stole away, and after hours returned in cheerful excite-
ment and said:

" She does it with her wings; her body is her drum."

The two would come out of the forests on Independence
or training days, when their home was in Kentucky. The
American flag stood for the liberty of the world, and
they would stop and hail it together on the verge of the
forest.

Audubon loved the old Fourth of July, when the peo-
ple of the towns assembled to celebrate Independence day
in the woods. The flag waving in the summer air thrilled
him. He admired the white-headed eagle, not as a bird
of prey, but of independence, as an emblem of freedom.

To gather with the Kentucky merrymakers in some
great clearing in the woods on Fourths of July was a de-

74 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

light that he afterward loved to recall, especially amid the
crowded scenes of English cities.

Over the flag floating in the blue of the Kentucky sum-
mer sky the eagle wheeled and screamed, as if all below
her wings were hers. The eagles of Rome and France
became emblems of American freedom before Audubon
immortalized the white-headed bird, but it is Audubon's
eagle that we find to-day in the new insignia everywhere.

Audubon had a pen like Washington Irving in the de-
scription of forest scenes. One of his most perfect literary
papers is a description of an old Kentucky barbecue, or
Independence-day festival, in the early towns. It will for-
ever preserve the memory of the celebration of liberty
as it was in the days of the pioneers of the great river
countries.

He says:

" Beargrass Creek, which is one of the many beautiful
streams of the highly cultivated and happy State of Ken-
tucky, meanders through a deeply shaded growth of ma-
jestic beech-woods, in which are interspersed various species
of walnut, oak, elm, ash, and other trees, extending on
either side of its course. The spot on which I witnessed
the celebration of an anniversary of the glorious procla-
mation of our independence is situated on its banks near
the city of Louisville. The woods spread their dense tufts
toward the shores of the fair Ohio on the west, and over
the gently rising grounds to the south and east. Every

VICTOR, THE SON OF AUDUBON f5

open spot forming a plantation was smiling in the luxuri-
ance of a summer harvest. The farmer seemed to stand
in admiration of the spectacle; the trees of his orchards
bowed their branches, as if anxious to restore to their
Mother Earth the fruit with which they were laden; the
flocks leisurely ruminated as they lay on their grassy beds;
and the genial warmth of the season seemed inclined to
favor their repose.

" The free, single-hearted Kentuckian, bold, erect, and
proud of his Virginian descent, had, as usual, made arrange-
ments for celebrating the day of his country's independ-
ence. The whole neighborhood joined with one consent.
No personal invitation was required where every one was
welcomed by his neighbor, and, from the Governor to the
guider of the plow, all met with light hearts and merry
faces.

" It was indeed a beautiful day: the bright sun rode in
the clear blue heavens; the gentle breezes wafted around
the odors of the gorgeous flowers; the little birds sang their
sweetest songs in the woods, and the fluttering insects
danced in the sunbeams. Columbia's sons and daughters
seemed to have grown younger that morning. For a whole
week or more many servants and some masters had been
busily engaged in clearing an area. The undergrowth had
been carefully cut down, the low boughs lopped off, and the
grass alone, verdant and gay, remained to carpet the sylvan
pavilion. Now the wagons were seen slowly moving along

76 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

under their load of provisions which had been prepared
for the common benefit. Each denizen had freely given
his ox, his ham, his venison, his turkeys, and other fowls.
Here were to be seen flagons of every beverage used in the
country; * la belle riviere ' had opened her finny stores; the
melons of all sorts, peaches, plums, and pears would have
sufficed to stock a market. In a word, Kentucky, the land
of abundance, had supplied a feast for her children. A
purling stream gave its waters freely, while the grateful
breezes cooled the air. Columns of smoke from the newly
kindled fires rose above the trees; fifty cooks or more
moved to and fro as they plied their trade; waiters of all
qualities were disposing the dishes, the glasses and punch-
bowls, amid vases filled with rich wines. ' Old Mononga-
hela ' filled many a barrel for the crowd. And now the
roasting viands perfume the air, and all appearances con-
spire to predict the speedy comencement of a banquet such
as may suit the vigorous appetite of American woodmen.
Every steward is at his post ready to receive the joyous
groups that at this moment begin to emerge from the dark
recesses of the woods.

" Each comely fair one, clad in pure white, is seen ad-
vancing under the protection of her sturdy lover, the neigh-
ing of their prancing steeds proclaiming how proud they
are of their burden. The youthful riders leap from their
seats, and the horses are speedily secured by twisting their
bridles round a branch. As the youth of Kentucky lightly

VICTOR, THE SON OF AUDUBON 77

and gayly advanced toward the barbecue, they resembled
a procession of nymphs and disguised divinities. Fathers
and mothers smiled upon them as they followed the bril-
liant cortege. In a short time the ground was alive with
merriment. A great wooden cannon bound with iron hoops
was now crammed with home-made powder, fire was con-
veyed to it by means of a train, and as the explosion burst
forth, thousands of hearty huzzas mingled with its echoes.
From the most learned a good oration fell in proud and
gladdening words on every ear, and although it probably
did not equal the eloquence of a Clay, an Everett, a Web-
ster, or a Preston, it served to remind every Kentuckian
present of the glorious name, the patriotism, the courage,
and the virtue of our immortal Washington. Fifes and
drums sounded the march which had ever led him to glory;
and as they changed to our celebrated Yankee Doodle, the
air again rang with acclamations.

" Now the stewards invited the assembled throngs to
the feast. The fair led the van, and were first placed
around the tables, which groaned under the profusion of
the best productions of the country that had been heaped
upon them. On each lovely nymph attended her gay beau,
who in her chance or sidelong glances ever watched an
opportunity of reading his happiness. How the viands
diminished under the action of so many agents of destruc-
tion I need not say, nor is it necessary that you should
listen to the long recital. Many a national toast was offered

78 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

and accepted, many speeches were delivered, and many
essayed in amicable reply. The ladies then retired to
booths that had been erected at a little distance, to which
they were conducted by their partners, who returned to
the table, and having thus cleared for action, recommenced
a series of hearty rounds. However, as Kentuckians are
neither slow nor long at their meals, all were in a few min-
utes replenished, and after a few more draughts from the
bowl they rejoined the ladies and prepared for the dance.
" Double lines of a hundred fair ones extended along
the ground in the most shady part of the woods, while here
and there smaller groups awaited the merry trills of reels
and cotillions. A burst of music from violins, clarinets,
and bugles gave the welcome notice, and presently the
whole assemblage seemed to be gracefully moving through
the air. The ' hunting-shirts ' noAV joined in the dance,
their fringed skirts keeping time with the gowns of the
ladies, and the married people of either sex stepped in and
mixed with their children. Every countenance beamed
with joy, every heart leaped with gladness; no pride, no
pomp, no affectation were there; their spirits brightened
as they continued their exhilarating exercise, and care and
sorrow were flung to the winds. During each interval of
rest refreshments of all sorts were handed round, and while
the fair one cooled her lips with the grateful juice of the
melon, the hunter of Kentucky quenched his thirst with
ample draughts of well-tempered punch.

VICTOR, THE SOX OF AUDUBON 79

" I know, reader, that had yon been with me on that
day yon would have richly enjoyed the sight of this national
fete-champetre. You would have listened with pleasure
to the ingenuous tale of the lover, the wise talk of the
elder on the affairs of the State, the accounts of improve-
ment in stock and utensils, and the hopes of continued pros-
perity to the country at large, and to Kentucky in particu-
lar. You would have been pleased to see those who did
not join in the dance shooting at distant marks with their
heavy rifles, or watched how they showed off the superior
speed of their high-bred ' Old Virginia ' horses, while others
recounted their hunting exploits, and at intervals made
the woods ring with their bursts of laughter. With me the
time sped like an arrow in its flight, and although more than
twenty years have elapsed since I joined a Kentucky bar-
becue, my spirit is refreshed every Fourth of July by the
recollection of that day's merriment.

" But now the sun has declined, and the shades of even-
ing creep over the scene. Large fires are lighted in the
woods, casting the long shadows of the live columns far
along the trodden ground, and flaring on the happy groups
loath to separate. In the still, clear sky begin to sparkle
the distant lamps of heaven. One might have thought
that nature herself smiled on the joy of her children. Sup-
per now appeared on the tables, and, after all had again
refreshed themselves, preparations were made for depart-
ure. The lover hurried for the steed of his fair one, the

80 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

hunter seized the arm of his friend, families gathered into
loving groups, and all returned in peace to their happy
homes.

" And now, reader, allow me also to take my leave, and
wish you good-night, trusting that, when I again appear
with another volume, you will be ready to welcome me
with a cordial greeting."

CHAPTER X

IX DAYS OF POVERTY— FATHER AND SOX— DAXIEL BOOXE

The poverty of Audubon in the middle period of his
life, when he was nearly completing his collections, was that
of a martyr to science. He had a true wife and true hearts
in his boys.

" The world deemed me mad/' he said, " but my family
believed in me."

Mrs. Audubon wished him to go to London, to study
the use of oils in making perfect his paintings. To help
him, she opened a school. After a struggle it became suc-
cessful, and brought to her a large income. This she
offered to her husband: his interests were her interests- his
life her life.

But Victor Audubon, his son — who had traveled with
his father, slept with him in the open, ate with him
from the bushes, and secured game for him, while he be-
came lost in study of some new bird — was a boy indeed
worthy of such a grand parent. He went into a store
at Louisville for a time, desiring, like his mother, to
make his father's noble work as easy and as perfect as
possible.

6 81

82 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

Miserably poor the American woodman was! Let me
give some pictures of him in his poverty.

From a boy he had read of the glory of Niagara.

In August, 1824, he heard the thunder of the cataract
from afar and approached the falls. He was overwhelmed
at the spectacle, as it were, of an overthrown sea. He
exclaims :

" All trembling I reached the falls of Niagara, and
oh, what a scene! My blood shudders still at the gran-
deur of the Creator's power that is here displayed. The
falls, the rainbow, the rapids defy description with the
pen!"

But what a humiliating confession follows these ex-
ultant words. He says:

" I moved toward the rapids, over which there is a
bridge to Goat Island, that I fain would have crossed to
look at the water which is running with incredible swift-
ness below, but I was deterred by the low state of my
funds!"

He could not spare the money to pay the toll over the
bridge.

Soon afterward his purse was reduced to " one hundred
and fifty cents."

He went to a prosperous pioneer town and replenished
his purse by portrait-painting.

He tells us how he felt when destitute in Cincinnati,
before asking a loan of money.

IN DAYS OF POVERTY 83

" Without money or means of making it, I applied to
Messrs. Keating and Bell for the loan of fifteen dollars,
but I had not the courage to do so until I had walked by
their house several times, unable to make up my mind how
to ask the favor.

" I got the loan cheerfully, and took a deck passage for
Louisville.

" I was allowed to take my meals in the cabin, but at
night slept among some shavings that I managed to scrape
together."

He gave lessons in music, French, and drawing at a
country town.

In these ways he collected money enough to pay his
passage to Europe, hoping there to show what America was
in the wealth of her birds.

" I am alone in the world, my son," he would say in
substance to Victor, " but I will not always be. The old
text rings in my ears, that ' the man diligent in his busi-
ness shall stand before kings.' I have done as perfect
work as one could do in America, and it will win its own
harvest.

" If I die before my work is completed, you must carry
on my work. It is the joy of a father to see his life go on
in his son."

" My father thinks of nothing but birds," said Victor
Audubon to his mother. " Nature study is his life, but he
is poor. We must guard his honor, and see that he makes

84: IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

for himself an honest fame. See what Europe is doing
for her scientists! "

" What have you read, Victor? "

" Cuvier was poor, he struggled hard, and now he has
not only been made perpetual secretary of the National
Institute of Paris and may live like a prince, but they are
about to make him a baron."

" Well, no one has better earned his fame, unless it be
Humboldt. Napoleon admitted him to the Council of
State, and the Bourbons are outdoing Napoleon, but Victor
Cuvier has made a new scientific world."

" And my father's work ought to reveal to Europe what
she can find in the forests of America. It ought to make
the dull English king hear the birds singing. I have
rounded the forests with my father, and I want him to see
his work valued at its worth. Did you know that Europe
was honoring Wilson? "

" I am glad it is so. Wilson has done good work out
of an honest heart. Think how he suffered and strug-
gled! "

" But his work is less accurate than father's. If the
Kings of England and Prussia so honor Humboldt, and Ber-
lin and Paris contend for him as a citizen, why should not
my father's worth be recognized?"

"America will do it one day, my son; worth reveals
itself."

" He has told me in the forests how Humboldt looked

IN DAYS OF POVERTY 85

as lie appeared before the Academy. His breast shone with
gold and gems.

" The description fires me. I want to go to London
with father, and help him to let the scientific nobility see
what the value of his work is. It would make me happy
to see him wearing a star on his breast, or possess a gold
snuff-box from the Czar."

" A snuff-box is no fitting reward of worth," said his
mother.

" Xot if he were a snuff-taker; but as a gift from an
emperor, as a sign of social equality, it is."

" "Well, the Czar may have a snuff-box in store for your
father — who knows? The Bourbons may have a star for
him."

" He would never win the gold box or the star himself.
He is too modest. I wish to go to Europe with him, and I
will work as hard for him in the court circles of scientists
as I have done in the forest. I can canvass for his
books, and I can look the pride I feel in such a father as
he. Think of all that we have been to each other! How
we have watched the ospreys feeding their nests! How
we have heard the night birds pass, and talked of the notes
of the insect gatherers that we could not see! How we
loved nature's children together, and have talked, lying
in a cave, of how all life had one source — God! How
we have studied the animals whose antlers broke down the
forests, the insects in armor, and have waited for hours to

gg IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

verify a single habit of a little bird! My father is a won-
derful man. He ought to be recognized as a benefactor,
and he shall be if I have a chance for influence among the
picture-buyers of the times. "

" I am glad to hear you say that your father is a good
man. If he ever should wear a star, after all the ridicule
that has been heaped upon him, how glad we would be that
we have been so faithful to him! "

" And if he should not win stars, or snuff-boxes, we will
also be glad, mother."

" Victor, you have spoken well. It is the true life to
be doing that which will make us satisfied at last."

Audubon made Victor his companion almost constantly,
as his work in the study of American birds grew.

In their journeys when they stopped at the cabins of
the pioneers they became interested in Daniel Boone, who
was a naturalist and a famous story-teller.

It was a delight to the boy to hear such men relate
tales of their adventures in the evening by the cabin door.

In meeting Daniel Boone, " the first white man of the
West," Audubon found the one man who knew the birds
• and beasts of Transylvania well. He could gain from him
a knowledge of rare birds and quadrupeds that could have
been obtained as well from no other white man.

Boone had once gone on an expedition to the great
Blue Licks of Kentucky to obtain salt for the garrison of
the pioneer fort, and had been captured by the Indians.

IN DAYS OF POVERTY

87

The first question that he asked himself in his early
captivity was, " How can I escape? " This was impossible
at that time. His next question was, " How can I make
my captivity a means of escape?" His answer was, "By
service and silence."

He followed this policy. The Indians, wishing to show
their prowess, carried him about for a show. He served
them well, and studied the coun-
try wherever he went. They
carried him to Detroit as a pris-
oner on exhibition. He served
them so well that they deter-
mined to make him a member of
their tribe.

When they made a new man
a member of their tribes, the
Indians initiated the captive with
some very strange ceremonies.
The initiated must be made to
wear a tuft-lock, or a single tuft of hair on the top of his
head.

They commenced pulling out Boone's hair, spear by
spear, until a single tuft was left. This they tied up with
fantastic ribbons of bark, or other material. They tried
to wash his white blood out of him by dipping him into
cold water. His body thus grew red. Then they painted
his face and ornamented him, and one of his old friends

88 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

at the fort would have thought him an Indian had he sud-
denly returned.

During his long captivity, his wife, who lived in Ken-
tucky, despaired of his ever returning again. She had come
to Transylvania from North Carolina, and she returned to
North Carolina with her family.

Boone at last escaped from the Indians. He returned
to his old home to find his wife gone, and he followed her
back to her old home in Carolina. What must she have
thought when she saw her husband returning more an
Indian in appearance than a white man?

In all these adventures Boone studied the woods. He
learned their wonders, and he gave all his strange dis-
coveries in the bird kingdom to Audubon. He told him
where rare birds had their nests and how to find them,
where rare animals lived and how to capture them, and to
study their habits. He helped the woodman to do work
that would never need to be done again.

Captain Boone one day came to visit Audubon, and
spent the night under his roof. The two sat down to relate
their adventures in the woods, one of which was substan-
tially as follows:

" I once went out to hunt/' said Captain Boone,
" among hostile Indians. I kindled a fire for roasting of
food and protection, but when night came on I was afraid
that the light might attract the eye of some Indian wan-
derer, so I stamped out the burning fagots.

IN DAYS OF POVERTY gg

" The woods were still. I was about sinking into sleep
when suddenly I felt a hand as of a giant laid upon my
shoulder. I rose up, and was overpowered by an unseen
foe, my hands were tied, and I was pushed forward toward
an Indian encampment.

" There was much palaver. There were fierce-looking
squaws in the encampment, and my appearance created
great excitement.

" I was their captive, and I could see that they intended
to deal with me after their savagery. The women were
drinking from a flask which the men had captured.

" Suddenly a shot was heard in the woods. I know not
from whom it came. The Indians understood, and rushed
off in the direction of it, leaving the squaws to guard me
until their return.

" I saw now my chance for escape, but my hands first
must be free.

'x When the women were a little off their guard, I sud-
denly thrust my wrists toward the fire, so as to burn off
the withes.

" I then suddenly appeared before the astonished and
terrified squaws free. I resolved to mark the place, and
before I dashed away I cut three notches in an ash-tree."
The sequel to this story was strange indeed, and became
a folk-lore tale of the woods through which the smoke of
new cabins was constantly curling.

The three notches on the ash-tree were grown over by

90 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

new bark when a great dispute arose in regard to a certain
boundary. It was agreed that the true boundary began
or ended with the ash-tree of three notches. But the tree
could not be found.

The controversy lasted long.

" Find us Boone's ash," said the backwoods judge, " and
the case will be settled."

" I must find Captain Boone first/' said a lawyer.

Captain Boone was found, and he revisited the place
of his short captivity.

" That is the tree/' said he, pointing to a lofty ash.
" It has grown since then."

" Prove it," said the lawyer.

Captain Boone went to the tree and stripped off the
bark at a certain angle. Under the bark three notches
clearly appeared.

The tree became known as " Boone's ash."

In the early days of the pioneers there were earth-
quakes in the South, like the one that threw down Charles-
ton some years ago. But only the Indians and a few white
adventurers knew of them. In the year 1812 an earth-
quake made the earth tremble from Kentucky to the Mis-
sissippi River. Audubon, in clear, graphic language, repaid
Boone by a story of this earthquake.

He said that he was riding on horseback when he heard
a sound as of a tornado, " on which," to use his own descrip-
tion as written out, " I spurred my steed, with a wish to

IN DAYS OF POVERTY 91

gallop as fast as possible to the place of shelter. But it
would not do; the animal knew better than I what was
forthcoming, and instead of going faster, so nearly stopped
that I remarked he placed one foot after another on the
ground with as much precaution as if walking on a smooth
sheet of ice. I thought he had suddenly foundered, and,
speaking to him, was on the point of dismounting and lead-
ing him, when all of a sudden he fell a-groaning piteously,
hung his head, spread out his four legs, as if to save him-
self from falling, and stood stock still, continuing to groan.
I thought my horse was about to die, and would have
sprung from his back had a moment more elapsed; but at
that instant all the shrubs and trees began to move from
their very roots, the ground rose and fell in successive fur-
rows, like the ruffled waters of a lake, and I became be-
wildered in my ideas, as I too plainly discovered that all
this awful commotion in nature was the result of an earth-
quake.

" I had never witnessed anything of the kind before,
although, like every other person, I knew of earthquakes
by description. But what is description compared with
reality? Who can tell of the sensations which I experi-
enced when I found myself rocking, as it were, upon my
horse, and with him moved to and fro like a child in a
cradle, with the most imminent danger around me? The
fearful convulsion, however, lasted only a few minutes, and
the heavens again brightened as quickly as they had be-

92 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

come obscured; my horse brought his feet to the natural
position, raised his head, and galloped off as if loose and
frolicking without a rider.

" I was not, however, without great apprehension re-
specting my family, from whom I was many miles distant,
fearful that where they were the shock might have caused
greater havoc than I had witnessed. I gave the bridle to
my steed, and was glad to see him appear as anxious to get
home as myself. The pace at which he galloped accom-
plished this sooner than I had expected, and I found, with
much pleasure, that hardly any greater harm had taken
place than the apprehension excited for my own safety.
Shock succeeded shock almost every day or night for sev-
eral weeks, diminishing, however, so gradually as to dwindle
away into mere vibrations of the earth. Strange to say, I
for one became so accustomed to the feeling as rather to
enjoy the fears manifested by others. I never can forget
the effects of one of the slighter shocks which took place
when I was at a friend's house, where I had gone to enjoy
the merriment that in our Western country attends a wed-
ding. The ceremony being performed, supper over, and
the fiddles tuned, dancing became the order of the moment.
This wTas merrily followed up to a late hour, when the
party retired to rest. We were in what is called, with great
propriety, a log house; one of large dimensions and solidly
constructed. The owner was a physician, and in one corner
were not only his lancets, tourniquets, amputating knives,

IN DAYS OF POVERTY 93

and other sanguinary apparatus, but all the drugs which he
employed for the relief of his patients, arranged in jars
and vials of different sizes. These had some days before
made a narrow escape from destruction, but had been for-
tunately preserved by closing the doors of the cases in
which they were contained.

" As I have said, we had all retired to rest. Morning
was fast approaching, when the rumbling sound that pre-
cedes the earthquake began so loudly as to awaken the
whole party, and drive them out of bed in the greatest con-
sternation. The scene which ensued was humorous in the
extreme. Fear knows no restraint. Every person, old and
young, filled with alarm at the creaking of the log house,
and apprehending instant destruction, rushed wildly out to
the grass enclosure fronting the building. The full moon
was slowly descending from her throne, covered at times
by clouds that rolled heavily along, as if to conceal from
her the scenes of terror which prevailed on earth below.

" On the grass plot we all met, in such condition as
rendered it next to impossible to discriminate any of the
party, all huddled together in a state of almost perfect
nudity. The earth waved like a field of corn before the
breeze; the birds left their perches, and flew about not
knowing whither; and the doctor, recollecting the danger
of his gallipots, ran to his office to prevent their dancing
off the shelves to the floor. Never for a moment did he
think of closing the doors, but, spreading his arms, jumped

94 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

about the front of the cases, pushing back here and there
the falling jars, but with so little success that before the
shock was over he had lost nearly all he possessed."

This curious story illustrates how strong is one's su-
preme passion even when death seems impending. Any
passion may be stronger than the fear of death, as in the
case of the doctor and his gallipots, the latter of which were
his priceless treasures, which he felt that the world needed
more than any other thing.

Such were the- forest tales of Victor's early years.

His love of the forest grew. He studied the language
of the birds — he lay as one entranced under the great trees.

The sunrise brought him birds; in the sunset he watched
the wings going home to their nest. The solitudes brought
him no sense of loneliness. The world was all alive to him
wherever he traveled, slept, and woke.

In this interesting period of the transition of the forests
from savage to civilized life there arose a man who in
some respects resembled Audubon, although Audubon
seems to have undervalued his work. It was George Cat-
lin, who had the genius of painting Indians. Audubon
criticises him as " over-painting " the children of the for-
ests, as representing them in too picturesque and heroic
attitudes. This man felt that to paint Indians was his
mission. He wandered the forests of North and South
America in the belief that he was doing notable work for
the future.

IN DAYS OF POVERTY 95

He was born in Wyoming Valley in 1796, studied law,
and lived to be nearly eighty years of age.

He was a self-taught painter, and loved his art. His
invaluable pictures may be seen in the National Museum,
Washington, and copies of them in many collections of illus-
trations of primitive wood life in America. He did a great
and noble work.

He loved the Indians. He introduced a party of
American Indians to Queen Victoria and the Prince Con-
sort, and he sought to protect the rights of the Indians in
all possible ways. He as well earned the praise of the name
of Protector of the Indians as Audubon did of the Pro-
tector of Birds. He believed the Indians to be of Asiatic
origin. He studied what was noble in them, and so he
arrived at this conclusion in regard to them. He went
to Europe and made for himself a great name among
scientists.

CHAPTER XI

A NOBLE WIFE

Oxe day Audubon came home in great excitement.

"I have lost my property again/' lie said; " all has
gone. I am as a beggar! "

" Xo — all has not gone/' said his serene and beautiful
wife; " you have me left, and the boys."

"I took you from luxury. What can you do for me
now?"

"Work! I can teach."

" But my boys, my dear boys? "

" I can educate them."

" It was in no desire for glory," said he, and here we
use his exact words in a like episode, " which led me into
this exile. I wished only to enjoy nature."

" Go on with your studies," said his wife; " though the
world turn against you, we will be true. You are doing a
work for the world, and we will work for you."

Mrs. Audubon became a governess and then a teacher.
The great plantations were rich at that time, and her high
character and accomplishments brought her pupils that ren-
dered her an income of several thousand dollars a year.

She established a school at Bayou Sara, La.
96

A NOBLE WIFE 97

How had lie again lost his property? He had sur-
rendered one estate to his sister, and had failed in business.

Audubon's father died. He had left him an estate of
some seventeen thousand dollars, but his agent lost the
property. He was penniless again.

Empty-handed, he wandered the wilderness again, paint-
ing birds in a way that would never be superseded.

" You should see him studying a worthless bird in the
woods among the rocks with his son," said the stage-coach
driver. " Why, can you think it? He stuffed a dead sheep
with hay, and he and his boy watched it to see a buzzard
come down and get fooled! Think of that — fooling a car-
rion bird, and his property all gone, and his poor wife keep-
ing school! They say that he has fooled his wife and boys."

" What does he want to fool the buzzard for? " asked
a waiting passenger, who had heard this strange story.

" To see if the buzzard could smell."

The waiting passenger laughed, and the old stage man
added:

" Who in the world cares whether a buzzard can smell
or not? "

But before Audubon could write his description of the
buzzard in his Ornithological Biographies, he must know
whether it was acute sight or acuteness of the sense of
smell that brought the buzzard down to this rotting food
like a speck from the sky.

So passed years with the family. They read from time

98 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

to time of how the great naturalists of Europe were ban-
queted by kings.

" Don't let your heart sink," Mrs. Audubon would say
to him. " You have me and you have the prophecy of
your old home, and some day a prince may give you some-
thing. If he does, remember I was true to your purpose,
and true to you. Oh, what an hour that would be! But
suppose it were never to come, your worth and value would
be the same. But it will come, it will come; my soul tells
me that it will come.

" But suppose it were never to come, your worth and
value would be the same. But it will come, it will come;
my soul tells me that it will come."

" I hope it will, my true wife, for Victor's sake ! "

Victor? He was his father's heart.

In these dark days, when the family was separated, the
mother and boy met. They talked long.

" Worth lies within, and happiness comes from within,"
said she. " I know not what may happen to me, but what-
ever comes I want you to be true to your father, and to his
work, which is his life."

" I will be true to him, mother, whatever may happen
to him or you. I love my father."

"And I will be true to you, Victor, and we will all be
true to our own! "

CHAPTER XII

VICTOR, THE FOREST BOY HOW HE STUDIED NATURE

So they became companions — father and son.

Victor accompanied his father on long and lonely jour-
neys, far from the Kentucky and Ohio Eivers, where white
feet had never gone before. He loved his father's calling
more and more, and he began to be jealous of his father's
reputation when he heard of Wilson's fame. Was he lone-
some in these far-away solitudes, where birds had sung
beyond the sound of the human ear?

No; how could he be? The bird's song to him was a
divine voice among the trees wherever he went. Some-
thing new and wonderful happened each day.

Let us follow the forest boy. It is Saturday evening,
far away from any human habitation. The sea lies fifty
miles away. Rocks covered with pines and great crags of
moss rise about the two naturalists.

" We will rest under the rocks to-night," said Audubon,
" and listen to the sounds of the descending wings. The
fishing-birds will be coming home from the sea."

They ate a spare supper out of the food pouch, and
listened.

100 IS THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

The red hazes of the twilight sky became flecked with
wings. The herons and sea-feeding birds were returning.
Then the two began to study the motions and the vibra-
tions of descending wings.

" They are the sounds," said the naturalist, " of the
birds coming home." Cheerful and love-lighting sounds
they were, like the returning footsteps of the father to the
fireside of his children. Mature has music that the common
ear does not hear.

They slept under the pines. Above them passed the
unseen wings of the night-hawks. Afar hooted the owl.

With Sunday morning came an uplift of wings — ascend-
ing wings. These upward wings bore the notes of triumph.
They rose as it were into the sun. They were not soft and
tender, they were loud and fierce.

And what did the two foresters do on Sunday? Mature
sang to them, and a quail preached to them a sermon which
the son would long be likely to recall.

They came upon the little quail and her brood of chicks,
whose fluffy, downy coverings were the color of brown
leaves.

The terrified bird gave a note of warning to her chicks.
In a moment they had disappeared, all but one.

Victor's eye caught the hiding-place of that one chick
and he put his hat over it.

" Let us now go a little way off and listen," said
Audubon.

VICTOR, THE FOREST BOY 101

They sat down on a clump of barberry-bushes, which
were tangled with wild-clematis vines and roses.

All was still. An hour passed, and all was still. Noon,
and all was still.

Then there was heard a timid call.

One.

Another timid call.

Two.

" She is counting her chicks," said Audubon.

Three.

So called the timid quail.

The chicks doubtless answered her.

But one did not.

They saw the hat move, but the chick did not come out.

There was a distressed call, repeated over and over.
Then it was repeated louder. Then louder.

It was so almost human that Victor said:

" I will let the little quail go."

He did so. They listened. The mother quail did not
call again.

" It is the parable of the lost sheep," said Audubon.

They watched a spider cleaning with his feet an old
web. Then they saw him weave his new world. "What
an instinct was that! "Whence did it come?

They saw one day a battle of the ants — as though that
pictured the useless battles among men.

One day they captured a venomous serpent, and Audu-

102 IN THE !>AYS OF AUDUBON

bon painted its fangs. The reptile was the embodiment of
the fire of rage. But the poison of the serpent was of the
same kind as the anger of an untrained nature, whether in
man or in animal.

The wild bees held them; the serpent holding a bird
in thrall; and to them everywhere the world was song.

Victor Audubon, the woods boy, saw the value of what
his father was doing, and he wondered if others would ever
see it. He himself was receiving an education such as no
other boy ever had. It hurt him more and more to hear
the tavern people speak lightly of what his father held to
be his calling.

In their long journeys together amid the hills and
streams they talked of little but the discoveries they were
making. It filled a day with delight to find a new bird, to
hear him sing and note his habits. The study of a new
nest or an egg would fill an evening under the trees.

When they emerged from some vast forest after long
wanderings, they would find newspapers at an inn which
would tell them what had happened in their absence.

One day, as they came to a backwoods tavern, and Au-
dubon had looked over the gazette, Victor asked:

" Is there anything new, father? "

" Humboldt, I see, has been called to Prussia again.
The king sees what men are of real value to the world."

" I wish that he might know what you are doing."

" Do not harbor thoughts like these, my boy. Hum-

VICTOR, THE FOREST BOY 103

boklt did not begin his travels with any expectation of re-
ward. He had to travel — there was an inborn power that
set his feet in motion. It is enough to know that one's
work has worth."

" Tell me how he looked when you saw him? "

" He was a grand man, and he talked of things which
the world did not know. He made me feel that I must
be like him — that I would like to do the work that he was
doing. On his breast shone a star. I did not covet the
star. Now the king will place another star there; he will
wear the stars of Spain, of France, of Germany. But, Vic-
tor, the rewards of work are not to be sought, but the
worth of work — that is the gold of life."

Victor dreamed of the high career of the many-starred
Humboldt.

" Father " — did ever a father have such a son? — " what-
ever may happen, I will be true to you and your work. If
the King of Prussia knew you as I know you, and your
work as I know it, he would send you a star."

" Or perhaps one of his golden snuff-boxes," said the
woodman. " I Avould be glad, for your sake, to see my work
honored by the king; it would give you joy, and you have
had faith in me in all my hardships, poverty, and wander-
ings. Whether I am rewarded or not, you will remember
me as one who was true to himself and his work. That is
to be rich."

" That is to make oneself one day the companion of

104 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

kings," said Victor. " So you have told me the old Knitter
of Mantes said, when you were a boy in France."

That evening they studied the habits of a captive night-
bird together, of a lone wanderer in the dark. The bird
seized the wicker in its bill and tried to free its wings. A
tremor would come over him when it found itself baffled.

" Why does it shudder its wings? " asked the boy.

" Why would you shrug your shoulders were you a
captive among Indians, and thought of freedom, your
mother, and the fireside and lamplight? It is the human
in the bird."

A night bird flew by and cried. The captive shuddered
again. So they studied the instincts of the bird, and talked,
long into the night, of the habits of the night pilgrim of
the air. These studies made Victor a naturalist.

CHAPTEK XIII

AUDUBON DISCOVERS THE GREAT EAGLE, THE BIRD OF
WASHINGTON THE EMBLEM OF THE REPUBLIC

Audubon trained his eye to see in a bird what he seemed
unable to discern in any of the many affairs of his life. He
was not successful in business, but on a trading voyage on
the Mississippi he one day saw a sight which recalled him
to the fact that success lies along the line of one's inborn
inclinations.

It was in February, 1814, a month which has all the
splendor of spring on the Mississippi. High in air was float-
ing a majestic bird — sailing as it were in a purple sea. It
was the true American eagle.

His heart bounded. He saw not only a magnificent
monarch of the air in the bird, but an emblem of inde-
pendence, of what the American Republic was and ought
to be among the nations of the earth. No bird disputed
his sway in the kingdom of the air.

He was filled with ecstasy at the sight. He compares

his joy to that of Herschel when he discovered the planet

that bears his name.

It was this discovery that had much influence in making

105

106 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

the eagle the emblematic bird of America. We think of
Audubon when we see the bird on a shield that supports
the flag.

The sight made Audubon restless to secure one of the
species, and to study its plans and habits. This restlessness
never left him until he had in his possession the monarch
of birds.

One day on the Green River, while collecting crayfish,
he saw the eagle again. The place was bounded by high
cliffs, and he thought that its nest was likely to be there.

He hid himself at the foot of a cliff where the nest
seemed likely to be, from the carefully studied spiral move-
ment of the bird.

After some time, there was the sound of descending
wings in the clear air. He heard a strange hissing; the
noise was that of young eaglets stretching out their necks
in expectation of food.

The male bird descended with a fish in his talons, evi-
dently unaware that he was watched.

Presently the female followed him, also bearing a fish
for her young.

But her keen suspicions penetrated the shelter of the
rocks below. She saw by a movement there, or a watch-
ing eye, that the nest had been discovered.

She dropped her fish and uttered a shriek of alarm.

She soared upward. Her mate followed her. Audu-
bon was unable to scale the cliffs so as to secure the birds

AUDUBON DISCOVERS THE GREAT EAGLE 107

as specimens. But liis soul was bent on capturing an
American eagle. He sought for one for two years,
when his watchfulness was rewarded. He held in his
possession the fierce sovereign of the sky, the noblest of
its species.

What should he name it? Washington, he thought,
was the truest of men, a terror to the foes of liberty, and
his fame was becoming universal. " I shall call the eagle
the Bird of Washington," he said.

When he had made the magnificent bird known to the
public, the Bird of Washington became by common con-
sent one of the emblems of the great republic of the West.
Eagles had been used as American emblems before Au-
dubon, but they had followed the suggestions of insignia
of Home and France. Franklin had objected to the em-
blem of the common eagle. The white-headed eagle of
Audubon has become the bird of the shield, although it
had been before made an emblem, and the common eagle
had become the bird of the banners. Audubon's eagle,
or the Bird of Washington, seems to be the most noble of
the earn family in its national suggestions.

Audubon trained Victor to help him do his work in
his own perfect way.

They painted together as one soul.

At last they had a portfolio of birds or bird pictures
which was Audubon's life, and which Victor valued as
highly as his father.

108 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

" You must hide them somewhere, father, where they
will be safe; a crown were less to be guarded."

" Yes, I have given my all to do this work, and your
heart has been as true as your feet have been."

" But I have been happy in the forests with you! "

" I doubt that we will ever see happier days. If we
were to have the favor of kings and courts, would we be
happier? "

CHAPTER XIV

THE DARK ROOM AUDUBON AND THE RATS

" I do not work for fame," said Audubon, " but for the
work's sake, because I love nature, and as Victor has said,
I must carefully hide my plates."

It had cost him days of perilous travel to picture the
habits of a single bird. In these arduous undertakings he
had slept in swamps and lived on berries. He had exposed
himself to fevers, and suffered from sickness without care.
He had plodded through malarial heats, and sought shelter
in caves from winter storms. And these forest roamings
were not for fame nor money, but for the love of nature,
which was the supreme passion of his soul.

His pictures were retouched and improved continually.
Go and examine them as they appear now in his famous
volume. The birds live in their most winsome or heroic
attitudes. The flowers and shrubs that they loved flame
around them. The true touch is in every plate; the bird-
haunted forest of the early days, like Birnam's Wood,
comes back again.

He retouched a large number of plates which to him

were his life treasures. He was about to make another ex-

109

HO IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

pedition along the great rivers of the Middle States. Wliat
should be done with these drawings and colorings? Where
should he hide them where they would be perfectly secure ?
for he felt that his future was in them. He must do as
Victor had said.

He visited Philadelphia with the plates, and there found
a solitary room where he thought they would be secure.
He rented the room.

" Xo one must use the room until I return," said he
to his host. " These plates are not only my fortune, they
are my life. They have cost me the labor of years."

" I understand you," said mine host. " Under no cir-
cumstances shall the room be used. Your work shall be
guarded like the jewels of a queen."

" Do not let even the cat enter the place."

" Xo, my friend, these plates which are sacred to you
shall be my trust. Xot even the cat shall visit the room."

" Let me adjust the Venetian blinds so as to guard
against the sun. The light of a room sometimes affects the
color of pictures."

He adjusted the blinds so as to shut out the sun.

Then he locked the room; he left it in darkness, and
he turned reluctantly away from these gems of art that
had cost him so much suffering and toil — ay, and so
much joy.

He went away, roamed the river-side forests, seeking
new birds and making new drawings. But his thoughts

THE DARK ROOM HI

wandered back to his treasures in the dark room in Phila-
delphia.

He returned at last with rapid feet. lie longed to be
among his art treasures again, to retouch them out of wider
experience, and to add to their number.

He came back to his friend's home where he had left
the darkened room, loaded with specimens.

"Are the pictures safe?" was almost his first inquiry.

" Safe, safe! You may be sure they are. Not even
the cat has entered the room. Go up to the chamber
and see."

He ascended the stairs, accompanied by his friend, un-
locked the door, lifted the Venetian blind, and glanced
around.

He trembled, and uttered a cry of horror.

"Rats! What have they clone? Oh, the light of my
life has gone out. Look, look, my precious plates! The
rats have made heaps of them. Years of toil would not
replace them. My heart sinks within me. God give me
health, I will recover them. I will make them better than
before!"

He gathered up the remains of his pictures, feeling
like Newton when the little dog Diamond destroyed his
astronomical calculations. He wandered about as one
dazed.

Everybody was sorry at heart for him. He felt keenly
all this sympathy, and said:

112 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

" But I will recover them, and do better work than
before. It will take three years. The cat did not enter
that room — would that she had ! "

So he must face the forest sun again and go over the
old trails and live like a wild man. He was doing work for
the sake of the work.

" The rats have limited reason," he must have thought.
" Misfortune should not arrest any man in a purpose to do
his best."

He would be more careful of his art treasures now — he
would place them where it would be well-nigh impossible
for accidents to befall them. He would become stronger
for his work than ever before.

But Victor — what would he feel, what would he say?

The news of the loss of the plates smote Victor to the
heart.

His father had lost his property, was ridiculed at the
taverns, but he had not lost his character, or his purpose
in life. The boy met his disappointment with his mother's
heart and spirit. .

"Victor, am I ruined?" asked Audubon. "Am I?"

" !No, father, you must go over all the work again ;
you will do it better for your loss. I will go again into
the forests with you, or I will become a clerk to help you.
Your new journeys will educate me; they will make me a
naturalist."

" Did ever a father have such a son? "

CHAPTEE XV

ALEXANDER WILSON, THE AMERICAN " ROBINSON CRUSOE "

HIS PARROT

This man, whom we have introduced among the earlier
incidents of Audubon's life, has had many tributes paid to
him by lovers of natural history and pilgrim poets. A
statue has been raised to him in his " ain toun," and his
grave, in the " auld kirkyard " of the Swedish Church in
Philadelphia, is still visited by lovers of nature. His was
a beautiful, self-forgetful life, and it was one that
Audubon, possibly with some little jealousy, closely fol-
lowed.

Of Wilson's inspiration to become a naturalist, a writer
has well said : " There lives in Scotland a man of peace.
A poor Paisley weaver, in his damp, dull lodging, he
dreamed of nature, of the infinite liberty of the woods,
and of winged life. A cripple, his very bondage inspired
him with a love of light and flight."

Wilson, like Audubon, loved birds for their own sake.

He was a cripple in early life, and he could not see

many birds, so he bought pictures of them. His pictures

made him long to follow them into the forest solitudes in
8 113

114 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

many lands. Poor, a cripple, a factory boy, a poet, his
heart went forth into nature — would his feet follow it?

Says an essayist of the impulse that suddenly took pos-
session of his soul:

" He took a decisive resolution; it was to abandon
everything, his trade, his country; to go where he might
see nature with his own eyes, observe, describe, and paint;
to exile himself in the solitudes of America; to shipwreck
life, that he might become a Robinson Crusoe."

But he did not know how to draw and paint; he did
not know how to write. He could make rhymes, but he
could not put them on paper.

What of that? He could learn how to draw, to paint
and write, and resolved to do it. He can who thinks he
can. Truth lies in the intuition, and in potency that has
no chart.

He found his way to America and plunged into the
deep forests and miasmatic savannas. He lived on wild
fruits and slept in the coverts of bears.

To meet a wild bird and a rare one was to him the
charm of his life. He was free. He had no house or
family to call him away from his mission. To injure a
bird was to injure him. To wound a bird was to hurt his
heart. It is said that his face grew to look like a bird. He
became a bird man. He, like Audubon, did much of his
work so that it will never need to be done again.

When he reached America the first thing that he wished

THE AMERICAN "ROBINSON CRUSOE" 115

to see was a " red-headed woodpecker." Then he fell in
love with the bluebird, and wrote of it one of the most
beautiful poems in the language.

He had one companion — a parrot. It was a Carolina
bird, and did not learn to talk after the manner of South
American birds, but it traveled with him a thousand miles.
He used to wrap her up in his handkerchief, and carry her
about in his pocket, and if she made her escape he would
turn aside to find her again. They loved and quarreled,
and she would sit on his shoulder and eat from his mouth.
Her health was broken at last, and she became a discon-
solate-looking bird. He put a mirror beside her; she
thought that her reflection was another bird, and she be-
came happy. She would lay her head against her own
reflection with joy. Alas, how like human life, when we
fancy that we find ourselves in others, or in others a reflec-
tion of ourselves! She was the man Friday.

He stood at last before the great naturalists of Europe.
" They poked each other in the ribs " when they beheld
him, but he shamed their ignorance by his simple knowl-
edge of things that he perfectly but they imperfectly knew.

AVe make mention of this friend of Audubon for a
reason that should inspire naturalists in their methods of
work. He never destroyed life if he could help it. He
studied living specimens, and when he could set them free
he gave them again to the fields, air, and sky.

He captured a little mouse, and he was about to kill it

116 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

to put it into the claw of an owl which he had painted, or
was preparing to paint. The heart of the little captive
beat hard. He was thirsty in his fever of terror. A drop
of water was on the table, and he ran out his wee tongue
to cool the burning thirst. Wilson saw that little tongue.
The sight went to his heart. He stayed his hand. Could
he quench a life that was so like the human?

CHAPTEK XVI

FLORIDA AS IT WAS

Audubon entered Florida as if it were a land of en-
chantment. The palmy peninsula, which was created as one
might almost say by neither the Divinity nor man, but by
the coral insects, has ever been a land of enchantment, but
always most beautiful in the winter months. To exist in
these balmy airs of Florida in winter is to enjoy life in
luxurious fulness.

In the woodlands the gray mosses wave in the mellow
gulf winds, the jasmines and the wild orange fill the air
with odor, and the pine barrens are melodious with mock-
ing-birds' songs.

In Audubon's time the rivers were full of alligators,
and the white ibises streamed through the air at this
period of solitude. The Seminole Indian roamed there
at will. The woods were full of rare birds and of
game.

Audubon was now at the height of his great popularity.

The Government was glad to do him honor, and to make

easy his researches. States welcomed him as a benefactor.

The heart of the country went with him into the ham-

117

118 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

mocks, pine barrens, and everglades of Florida, the secrets
of which he was to reveal to the world.

It was in the winter of 1831, some seventy or more
years ago. He went to East Florida first, and wandered
over its shining beaches and gathered specimens and ex-
amined them under the shadows of the palms. The bushes
were full of song, and the pines were fire.

One of the first wonders of the bird world to attract
him was the Zenaida dove, which came from the West India
Islands, winging its way close to the purple waters at cer-
tain seasons of the year. It is noted for its beauty of plu-
mage, its melodious and plaintive voice, and its affection
for its mate. It is a vision of beauty on the wing, and its
habits are as charming as its breast, neck, and wings.

Florida was filled with doves at this time. They floated
on iridescent wings among the mosses. Audubon, who was
always a protector of birds, was taught new lessons of ten-
derness by the doves of Florida.

" Who/' he said, " can approach a setting dove, hear
her notes of remonstrance, or feel the feeble stroke of her
wings, without being convicted that he is committing a
wrong act? "

Audubon relates his sensations on trying to capture a
Zenaida dove alive.

He approached the nest with still feet. The mother
bird discovered him, and maintained her place, brooding
over her young until she saw that she was in danger, and

FLORIDA AS IT WAS 119

then uttered a childlike cry. She fell before him with
quivering wings, her whole form trembling, and her voice
begging him to spare her nest.

He said:

"Who could bear such a scene of despair? I left the
mother in security with her offspring. "

He went to the solitudes of the snowy ibis and heron,
the red flamingo and the dusky pelican. He found at
Tampa the resplendent Key West pigeon.

" Ah ! " he exclaimed, with a naturalist's enthusiasm at
that lovely bird, " did ever Egyptian pharmacopolist em-
ploy more care in embalming the most illustrious of the
Pharaohs than I did in preserving from injury the most
beautiful inhabitant of the wood covers! "

Age had not abated the tenderness of Audubon's heart
toward the winged dwellers of the trees. It is always so
with a true lover of nature. To study nature is to find
oneself in sympathy with the whole creation, and the larger
one's knowledge the greater is his beneficence. A less
schooled nature would have seized upon the zenaida clove,
although she were quivering at the thought of being taken
from her young.

In Florida he saw a caracara eagle, the Brazilian bird.
He pursued it in vain for a time, but at last one of these
proud Andean birds fell into his hands.

It hurt him to take the life of this regal inhabitant of
the peaks, and his description of how he endeavored to do

120 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

this without causing the bird pain shows the growing ten-
derness of his nature toward the winged world:

" The eagle," he tells us, " was immediately conveyed
to my place of residence, covered by a blanket, to save him
in his adversity from the gaze of the people. I placed the
cage so as to afford me a good view of the captive, and I
must acknowledge that as I watched his looks of proud dis-
dain I did not feel toward him so generously as I ought to
have done. At times I was half inclined to restore him to
his freedom, that he might return to his native mountains;
nay, I several times thought how pleasant it would be to see
him spread out his broad wings and sail away toward the
rocks of his wild haunts; but then some one seemed to
whisper that I ought to take the portrait of this magnificent
bird, and I abandoned the more generous design of setting
him at liberty, for the express purpose of showing you his
semblance.

" I occupied myself a whole day in watching his move-
ments; on the next day I came to a determination as to
the position in which I might best represent him; and, on
the third, thought of how I could take away his life with
the least pain to him. I consulted several persons on the
subject, and among others my most worthy and generous
friend Dr. George Parkman, who kindly visited my family
every day. He spoke of suffocating him by means of burn-
ing charcoal, of killing him by electricity, etc., and we
both concluded that the first method would be probably the

FLORIDA AS IT WAS 121

easiest for ourselves and the least painful to him. Accord-
ingly, the bird was removed in his prison to a very small
room and closely covered with blankets, a pan of lighted
charcoal was introduced, the windows and doors fastened,
and the blankets tucked in beneath the cage. I waited, ex-
pecting every moment to hear him fall down from his
perch; but, after listening for hours, I opened the door,
raised the blankets, and peeped under them amid a mass
of suffocating fumes.

" There stood the eagle on his perch, with his bright,
unflinching eye turned toward me, and as lively and vig-
orous as ever! Instantly reclosing every aperture, I re-
sumed my station at the door, and toward midnight, not
having heard the least noise, I again took a peep at my
victim. He was still uninjured, although the air of the
closet was insupportable to my son and myself, and that
of the adjoining apartment began to feel unpleasant.

" I persevered, however, or ten hours in all, when,
finding that the charcoal fumes would not produce the
desired effect, I retired to rest, wearied and disappointed.
Early next morning I tried the charcoal anew, adding to
it a quantity of sulphur, but we were nearly driven from
our house in a few hours by the stifling vapors, while the
noble bird continued to stand erect and look defiance at us
whenever we approached his post of martyrdom. His fierce
demeanor precluded all external application, and at last I
was compelled to resort to a method, always used as a last

122 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

expedient, and a most effectual one. I thrust a long
pointed piece of steel through his heart, when my proud
prisoner instantly fell dead, without even ruffling a
feather.

" I sat up nearly the whole of another night to outline
him, and worked so constantly at the drawing that it nearly
cost me my life. I was suddenly seized with a spasmodic
affection that much alarmed my family, and completely
prostrated me for some days."

CHAPTEE XVII

THE SICK BOY WAGON TALES

One day there came a hasty messenger to Mrs. Audu-
bon in Louisiana bearing a letter marked " In haste." She
broke the seal and read:

" Victor is very sick of the fever; he lies in the wagon
at Beechwood under the trees. He calls for you con-
stantly—' Mother, mother! ' "

" I must go to him," said Mrs. Audubon.

" The journey is a long one and will be hard/' said
her friends.

" But I can not stay," said Mrs. Audubon. " Did ever
a woman hesitate at the call of ' mother ' ? "

" He may have the yellow fever," said an alarmed
servant. " The country is full of it this fall."

" That does not matter; I must go to him. He calls
1 mother ' ! "

It was early autumn — the still, dry time of the year.

The river towns were almost deserted on account of the

fever. The intense heat of the summer continued; the

roads were dusty, and the stage-drivers rode with fear past

the great plantations on account of the sickness.

123

12 i IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

Mrs. Audubon made little preparation. She called a
driver and faced the wilderness. She heard the call of
" Mother, mother! "

She traveled night and day. Food, sleep, and comforts
were nothing to her now. She said to the drivers, " Hurry,
hurry! "

In the glimmering dusk of a silent twilight she reached
Beechwood. She dropped from the carriage and was met
by her husband.

" So soon, Lucy? " said Audubon. " What brought you
here in such quick time? "

" A mother's heart. How is Victor? "

" Come and see — still."

The boy lay outside of a forest home in a traveling
wagon under the trees.

" It is better for him to be in the air," whispered Au-
dubon. " I hope he may know you. Do not speak at
first. He is in a stupor. It is a critical hour."

There was a deep stillness in the red forests. A few
black ravens flew up into the twilight-flaming tree tops. A
dog barked, and was hushed.

Victor lay as one dead, his white forehead burning
with fever, his neck open, his hair tangled.

Mrs. Audubon laid her hand on his forehead and put
back his hair.

He moved, but he did not open his eyes. His lips
parted.

THE SICK BOY 125

" It is mother's hand ! " he said.

He began to revive. His eyes opened, and he said:

" I knew it was your hand. I am coming back."

Mrs. Audubon looked up to the sky where a star was
shining, and she breathed a prayer and a thanksgiving. It
was a happy hour.

The doctor came on horseback and looked at the. boy.

" The fever has turned," he said. " While the sky is
clear, let him lie here under the trees."

In the night the fever abated. She brought him
water from the spring near, and he repeated over and
over:

" O mother, I am so glad that you have come! "

There was a light dew that night, but the sun rose the
next morning in a clear sky, and the atmosphere seemed
burning. The beech-woods spread out their great arms
over the wagon, and the forest birds gathered in the thick,
cool shade.

As soon as Victor was out of danger Audubon's
thoughts turned to the birds again, and he began to talk
with the convalescent about them. He pointed to the pine
bowers that rose dark in the hot air, and said:

" There, through the clear, rarefied atmosphere, the
raven spreads his wings, and as he onward sails rises higher
and higher each bold sweep that he makes, as if conscious
that the nearer he approaches the sun the more glistening
will become the tints of his plumage.

126 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

" Some say that they destroy the raven because he is
black, others because his croaking is unpleasant. As for
me, I admire the raven because I see so much in him to
excite our wonder."

Hour by hour Mrs. Audubon stood over Victor.

One morning he sat up, and the doctor pronounced
him " out of danger, with care."

He took him to the veranda. A few drops of rain
were falling, cooling the air.

" Mother," said Victor, " you have been true to your
own. I can see my life now — I must learn to paint, that
I may continue father's work in the future. I have been
brought back for this purpose; I will make my forest life
an education, and we will be true to each other and to
what we have been given to do."

He called for stories, and his father told them under
the cooling trees that leaned over the roof of the forest
house.

LISTENING TO THE TREE

Among the many stories that Audubon used to relate
of the insect-destroying birds is one that Victor loved to
hear. It well illustrates his habits of observation.

He had been told at Louisville, Ky., that there was a cer-
tain large tree like a chimney in which a cloud of swallows
spent the night. He determined to listen to this tree when
the swallows came home.

THE SICK BOY 127

"The evening/' lie says, "was beautiful; thousands of
swallows were flying above me, and by threes and fours
were pitching into the hole in the tree like bees hurrying
to their hives. I remained, my head leaning on the tree,
listening to the roaring noise within.

" Next morning I rose early and placed my head against
the tree. I stood in this posture some twenty minutes,
when suddenly I thought that the great tree was giving
way. I sprang from it. The swallows were pouring out
of it in a black, continual stream. I listened with amaze-
ment to the noise within, which I could compare to noth-
ing but the sound of a large wheel revolving under a
powerful stream. "

He estimated the number of birds who roosted in this
chimney tree, clinging to the hollow in an unbroken mass,
to be nine thousand!

He related the stories that revealed to Victor the true
methods of studying nature. He made of the lonely beech-
woods a school. Those were happy weeks that the three
united hearts spent in the woods.

" We must give something to find something," said Mrs.
Audubon ; " we must go into silence, if we would have
something to say. We must do right, follow the voice of our
gifts, and then believe that all that happens to us is for
our best good."

Audubon was a natural story-teller. To hear him tell
tales was to live in the scenes again. We can picture him

128 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

relating his old experiences to the sick boy as he lay in the
wagon.

There was a mocking-bird in New Orleans that used to
sing on the same chimney-top night after night until
twelve o'clock, when it would go to the Convent Gardens
to feast. Its song would ripple on the air as caught from
some paradise, until the watchman would pass by, saying:

"All is well!"

The bird on the chimney, too, would pause in its singing,
and, as if speaking to the household, would say:

" All is well! " and then continue its rapturous melody.

To Audubon such a voice came out of the life of
divine mysteries. He listened to bird songs with a double
ear. In his darkest hours he could hear this voice, " All is
well! "

His dogs seemed to understand him, to follow his very
thought.

He tells a story of a tremulous dog that lay by his side
in an hour of terror.

This story was a favorite in the woods. It so pictures
the naturalist's life in the deep Indian forest that we should
relate it here. We follow Audubon's own language in
part, changing a few words for the sake of a free, inter-
pretative narrative.

THE SICK BOY 129

THE CABIN IN THE FOREST

He says, to use his own beautiful descriptions, at the
beginning of the narrative:

" On my return from the upper Mississippi I found my-
self obliged to cross one of the wide prairies which, in
that portion of the United States, vary the appearance
of the country. The weather was fine; all around me was
as fresh and blooming as if it had just been issued from
the bosom of nature. My knapsack, my gun, and my dog
were all I had for baggage and company. But, although
well moccasined, I moved slowly along, attracted by the
brilliancy of the flowers, and the gambols of the fawns
around their dams, to all appearance as thoughtless of
danger as I felt myself.

" My march was of long duration. I saw the sun sink-
ing beneath the horizon long before I could perceive any
appearance of woodlands, and nothing in the shape of man
had I met with that day. The track which I followed was
only an old Indian trail, and as darkness overshadowed the
prairie I felt some desire to reach at least a copse, in which
I might lie down to rest. The night-hawks were skimming
over and around me, attracted by the buzzing wings of the
beetles which form their food, and the distant howling of
the wolves gave me hope that I should soon arrive at the
skirts of some woodland.

" I did so, and almost at the same instant a firelight
9

130 itf THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

attracted my eye. I moved toward it, full of confidence
that it proceeded from the camp of some wandering In-
dians. I was mistaken. I discovered by its glare that it
was from the hearth of a small log cabin, and that a tall
figure passed and repassed between it and me, as if busily
engaged in household arrangements.

" I reached the spot, and presenting myself at the door,
asked the tall figure, which proved to be a woman, if I
might take shelter under her roof for the night? Her
voice was gruff, and her dress negligently thrown about
her. She answered in the affirmative. I walked in, took a
wooden stool, and quietly seated myself by the fire. The
next object that attracted my notice was a finely formed
young Indian, resting his head between his hands, with his
elbows on his knees. A long bow rested against the log
wall near him, while a quantity of arrows and two or three
raccoon skins lay at his feet. He moved not; he apparently
breathed not. Accustomed to the habits of the Indians,
and knowing that they pay little attention to the approach
of civilized strangers, I addressed him in French, a lan-
guage not infrequently partially known to the people of
that neighborhood. He raised his head, pointed to one of
his eyes with his finger, and gave me a significant glance
with the other; his face was covered with blood.

" The fact was, that an hour before this, as he was in
the act of discharging an arrow at a raccoon in the top of
a tree, the arrow had split upon the cord, and sprung back

THE SICK BOY 131

with such violence into his right eye as to destroy it
forever.

" Feeling hungry, I inquired what sort of fare I might
expect. Such a thing as a bed was not to be seen, but
many large untanned bear and buffalo hides lay piled in
a corner. I drew a timepiece from my pocket and told
the woman that it was late and that I was fatigued. She
espied my watch, the richness of which seemed to operate
on her feelings with electric quickness. She told me there
was plenty of venison and jerked buffalo meat, and that
on removing the ashes I should find a cake. But my watch
had struck her fancy, and her curiosity had to be gratified
by an immediate sight of it. I took off the gold chain,
which secured it around my neck, and presented it to her.
She was all ecstasy, spoke of its beauty, asked me its value,
and put the chain around her brawny neck, saying how
happy the possession of such a watch would make her.
Thoughtless, and, as I fancied myself, in so retired a spot,
secure, I paid little attention to her talk or her move-
ments. I helped my dog to a good supper of venison, and
was not long in satisfying the demands of my own appetite.

" The Indian rose from his seat as if in extreme suffer-
ing. He passed and repassed me several times, and once
pinched me on the side so violently that the pain nearly
brought forth an exclamation of anger. I looked at him, his
eye met mine, but his look was so forbidding that it struck
a chill into the more nervous part of my system. He again

132 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

seated himself, drew his butcher-knife from its greasy scab-
bard, examined its edge as I would do that of a razor sus-
pected dull, replaced it, and again taking his tomahawk
from his back, filled the pipe of it with tobacco, and sent
me expressive glances whenever our hostess chanced to have
her back toward us.

" !N^ver till that moment had my senses been awakened
to the danger which I now suspected to be about me. I
returned glance for glance to my companion, and rested
well assured that whatever enemies I might have he was
not of their number.

" I asked the woman for my watch, wound it up, and
under pretense of wishing to see how the weather might
probably be on the morrow, took up my gun and walked
out of the cabin. I slipped a ball into each barrel, scraped
the edges of my flints, renewed the primings, and, return-
ing to the hut, gave a favorable account of my observa-
tions. I took a few bear skins, made a pallet of them, and,
calling my faithful dog to my side, lay down, with my gun
close to my body, and in a few minutes was to all appear-
ance fast asleep.

" A short time had elapsed when some voices were
heard, and from the corner of my eyes I saw two athletic
youths making their entrance, bearing a dead stag on a
pole. They disposed of their burden, and, asking for
whisky, helped themselves freely to it. Observing me and
the wounded Indian, they asked who I was, and why that

THE SICK BOY 133

rascal (meaning the Indian, who, they knew, understood
not a word of English) was in the house? The mother, for
so she proved to be, bade them speak less loudly, made men-
tion of my watch, and took them to a corner where a con-
versation took place, the purport of which it required little
shrewdness in me to guess. I tapped my dog gently; he
moved his tail, and with indescribable pleasure I saw his
fine eyes alternately fixed on me and raised toward the trio
in the corner. I felt that he perceived danger in my situa-
tion. The Indian exchanged the last glance with me."

An hour of terror followed. The lads were sinking
into a drunken sleep, when the thought of stealing the
watch seemed to take possession of the Indian squaw. She
went to one of the lads, and said to him in a voice that
Audubon could hear:

" Settle him, and then I'll have the watch."

The naturalist cocked his gun locks silently, and then
touched his faithful dog on the head. The two watched
the squaw with intent eyes, the dog bent on one thing only,
the safety of his master.

In this hour of suspense some travelers suddenly ap-
peared at the door. Audubon told them his story; the
squaw was arrested, and the cabin burned.

This story gives a view of prairie life on the Missis-
sippi at that time, and also of the perils that the American
woodman met in his solitary journeys with his alert and
faithful dog.

134 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

Let us recall like stories amid these scenes under the
beech-wood shadows at evening. Victor may have lain in
the wagon; his mother watched by his side, and the ever-
faithful dog could listen to a wonder tale if he could not
understand it.

IN THE SWAMPS OF THE YAZOO

We have now a very strange story to tell, and it belongs
to a period of American life long passed away.

It was sultry noon on the banks of the Mississippi.
Afar lay the great, dark, almost impenetrable swamps of
the Yazoo, the home of the ibis. Here, too, was the haunt
of the alligator; it might be said that here were cities of
alligators. The land was green with reeds and deep with
mire. The poisonous serpent coiled here, and the air was
poison.

But into the reeds of the poisoned air Audubon went,
intent on doing the perfect work of his almost solitary
calling.

He came one day to a miry weir, where the wood ibises
lived among the slimy reptiles. He was wading through the
weir with his dog Plato, and his knife drawn as a defense
against alligators, when the waters grew deep, and he flung
his traveling bag to the shore.

He presently gained the short, when his dog became
greatly excited. Audubon looked around for the cause.

" Stand still or die!"

THE SICK BOY 135

He heard a voice, but saw no man. He cocked his
gun.

The tall canes began to waver before him.

A giant negro rose up.

" Stand still or die!"

The negro had a gun, but Audubon saw it was worth-
less. He dropped the stock of his own gun on the ground
and turned to the negro a friendly face.

" I am not your enemy/' said Audubon, " but only a
hunter. Who are you? "

" Will you not betray an honest man, master, 'fore
God?"

" I never betrayed an honest man. I tell you the truth.
I bear no man an ill will."

" And you will not give me up? "

" If you are not a criminal your secret shall be mine."

" Then I am a runaway — a fugitive. I ran away for
the love of my own wife and children. We were to be sold
apart, and I hid them here in the swamps of the canes. I
love my own wife and children, stranger. It is the will of
God that I should love them, and that they should be mine.
Is not that right, stranger? "

" That law is right."

" Then follow me to my house. I will shelter you
there, and help you to carry away your birds. I know the
trails of the swamps."

The negro's eyes glowed, and an amiable and lovable

!36 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

expression filled his face. It was evident that his family
to him was everything — it was more than life. He would
rather die than be separated from his own.

" I will follow yon," said Audubon.

" Then I will lay my old gun down here, that you may
know my heart is true."

He laid his gun down by a tree.

" And you shall take my knife."

He handed the knife to Audubon.

They traveled into a mighty swamp, the home of
great reptiles, and flocks of pelican-like birds. The ways
were tortuous and winding.

At last the negro stopped and uttered a cry, or call,
that pierced the ear of Audubon and he involuntarily
leveled his gun.

" Ko harm, massa," said the negro. " Put aside your
weapon, no harm. I only did that to let my wife know
that I am coming.

He listened.

His cry was answered by a woman at a point in the
distance.

" My wife, my own wife, mine," he said, with a look
of delight.

" O master, my wife may be black, but she is as beau-
tiful to me as the wife of the President is to her own. She is
to me like a queen. You shall see her and my little chil-
dren."

THE SICK BOY 137

They came at last to a knoll in the great cane-brake.
His wife rushed out to welcome him, and his children
followed her. His wife heard his story of meeting the
white hunter, and the children made friends with the
dog.

He told his tale in the evening as they all partook of
a repast. His master had sustained heavy losses, and was
compelled to sell a part of his estate and some of his slaves.
He had sold this man's wife and children to a planter some
hundred miles distant. They could not live apart, so he
contrived means of meeting his own and planned an escape
into these dread swamps of mire and poison, happy at heart
if he could be with his own. A hell were a heaven if he
could be with his own.

They had escaped in a hurricane, and he had found this
retreat, where alligators, serpents, and poisoned air would
be his defense, for the sake of his own.

" I wish you could secure for us a common master,"
said he.

His tale went to the heart of Audubon.

He resolved to go to one of the negro's former mas-
ters and try to arrange for a safe return of the fugitives
to a single plantation.

He put aside the ibises he had found in the cane-brake
for this act of humanity. He found the first master of the
fugitive family, and appealed to his heart.

The planter heard his story with willing ears. He would

138 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

receive the negro back, and purchase his family for him, and
they should have one cabin. He did so.

So the evenings came and went at the beech-woods.

Little could that true-hearted family have dreamed of
what awaited them in the near future.

This was a time for reflection — under the trees.

" You have done a great work, father," said Victor.

" How can I make it known to the world? How can I
let the world see what I have done? I must go to London.
London is the world."

" I will work for you in Louisville or anywhere while
you are gone, if I can best help you in that way. You may
have the money I earn."

" You have your mother's heart: Oh, it is worth a
world to feel a heart like yours beating true to mine. I am
happy in my poverty with such a son as you.

" My son, I sometimes think of the words of the old
Knitter at Nantes, who said that, on account of my dili-
gence, I would stand before kings. If I could secure the
signature of George IV to my drawings, what a man I would
be! The world would see in my pictures what America is;
the feet of an army of pioneers would follow me. Yes, I
must go to England. I was led to my destiny by suggestion,
and suggestion is as a whisper from God."

The two prepared to return to Louisville together in
October. They reached Green Kiver on foot, when a new

THE SICK BOY 139

trouble came. Victor did not recover from his fever as
rapidly as his father, and he seems to have been overcome
by the sequences.

Audubon procured a wagon and laid his boy in it and
traveled beside him. What a journey that must have been
amid the bright days of the falling leaves !

Audubon journeyed on through sparsely inhabited
woods. Two things troubled him: his lack of money, and
lack of a larger knowledge of wanting to do perfect
work.

He talked with his sick boy.

" Perfect work was the ideal of my father. He tried
to prepare me for it."

" The woods open as we go on," we may fancy his son
to have said; " so it will be with life."

" Yes, the current of the mountain stream knows the
way, and I am doing the best I can. To do the best one can
leads to a larger and higher way."

He nursed the boy, and the forest birds came to the
edges of the road pines to wonder at them as they went on
their way. They had one consolation: the whole family
were one in the love and trust of each other's heart.

It was on this perilous forest journey from Florida to
Louisville that a very strange incident of natural history
occurred.

They came to a squatter's cabin in the woods.

140 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON •

The squatter seems to have been a kindly man, a rude
lover of nature, and he was being followed by a black-wolf-
like little dog.

The squatter welcomed them, and when they sat down
outside of his cabin to talk, the black wolf lay down at
his feet.

" He seems capable of affection," said Audubon.

" Everything is, if you treat it right. There is a good
spot in all things, a saving remnant in every heart that
lives."

" Where did you find him? "

" Oh, I brought him up like a kitten. See him lick
my hand. Say, why could not wolves be tamed and made
useful? The heart conquers all things, in my opinion, if
one only knows how."

The black wolf seemed to understand the friendliness
of tone, and leaped about in the sunlight as if perfectly
contented and happy.

" See how he is overjoyed to obey me! " said the
squatter.

"Ranger, here; leap up here."

The wolf leaped into his lap, and the squatter hugged
him to his breast.

" He will follow me anywhere, and do everything I
direct him to do as far as he can understand. That is all
that humans can do."

Audubon and Victor studied the black wrolf with

THE SICK BOY 141

wonder. Naturalists that they were, they had hardly seen
a friendship like that before.

" Xo one need to be lonesome in the woods/' said the
squatter. " The world is full of friends everywhere, if you
only treat it rightly."

Audubon was very poor, but he wanted to own that
black wolf.

" For how much would you sell him to me?" asked
Audubon.

" Sell him? Why, I couldn't part with him. See him
cuddle up to me as though I were his best friend. I could
not sell a heart like that."

" I will give you five dollars for him."

" Couldn't think of it. I would be dreadful lonesome
without him, all out here in the woods alone. I brought
him up to be company for me. It would be like selling
one of my children."

Audubon took out of his pocket a hundred-dollar bill
that he had been saving for special needs.

" Look at that, friend. I will give you one hundred
dollars for him."

The squatter probably never saw so much money
before.

" I would be glad to oblige you, stranger, but I can't
part with the animal nohow. It wouldn't be using him
right."

The story in its leading incidents is substantially true.

142 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

The family affection grew. Audubon thus spoke to
Victor in reference to his wife in the days of failure, and
here we use his own words:

" Your mother held in her arms your baby sister. She
felt the pangs of misfortune perhaps more heavily than I,
but never for an hour lost her courage; her brave and
cheerful spirit accepted all, and no reproaches from her
lips ever wounded my heart.

" With her was I always not rich? "

Audubon's heart lived more and more in the affection
of Victor, who amid all misfortune was the same to him.
He thus wrote to him in regard to his wife:

" Should the Author of all things deprive me of my
life work for the comfort of the dear being who gave
you birth. Work for her, my son, as long as it may be
the pleasure of God to grant her life. Never neglect her
a moment; in a word, prove to her that you are truly
a son." *

Victor Audubon needed not such an admonition. He
was a gentleman in himself, and he carried with him the
family heart.

In his adversity Audubon never neglected the " gift
that was in him."

He says — and what a picture this is! —

" Among all these adverse circumstances I never for

* Audubon's own words.

Father and son painted together

THE SICK BOY 143

a day gave up listening to the songs of our birds, or watch-
ing their peculiar habits, or delineating them in the best
way I could; nay, during my deepest troubles I frequently
would wrench myself away from the people around me
and retire to some secluded part of our noble forests, and
many a time at the sound of the wood-thrushes' melodies
have I fallen upon my knees and there prayed earnestly
to our God."

It was the winter of 1823-'24. Audubon had returned
from the long Southern journey to Louisville, the journey
on which he had been stricken down with the yellow fever,
when his faithful wife went out into the forests to nurse
him. He engaged a room for himself and Victor at Ship-
pingport, where the father and son painted all winter.

He gave himself to his life illustrations, doing as perfect
work as he was able on his beloved Birds of America. He
lived simply in a single room, but the sky, the bright waters,
and the forests all were his. He talked to Victor as to his
heart, and the boy, like the Knitter of Nantes, came to
believe that he would one day " stand before kings."

A trader of the town saw how impoverished they were
and wished to help them. He came to them one day.

" Mr. Audubon, my business prospers, and I want a
sign over my door that will be worthy of it. Would you
consider it beneath the dignity of a true artist to paint
a sign? "

" No, a well-painted sign would honor my art."

144 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

" "Will you paint me a sign if I pay you well? "

" My good friend, I need the money. I have tried to
live very sparingly, I and my faithful son. But I will put
good work into your sign, and such as will not be any dis-
honor to me or to art."

The sign was painted, and other signs were painted by
Audubon for other men. But though he painted signs,
Audubon, in his necessities, was a model gentleman. That
any man can be.

The meeting of a friendly eye is sometimes a turning-
point in life. That decisive moment came to Audubon.
He showed his wonderful plates to Prince Canino, the son
of Lucien Bonaparte. The prince saw their worth at once.

" I should advise you to take these to England," he said,
" and publish them in book form by subscription."

" But I am poor."

" Take the first steps and the ways will open before
you."

He went to his wife and Victor with the prince's counsel.

" Go," said they; " our hearts are yours, our hands shall
be ; we will be true to our own ! "

CHAPTEE XVIII

THE SIGNATURE OF THE KING

The spring of 1827 found Audubon in Scotland and
England, becoming famous and yet still poor, seeking sub-
scriptions for American Birds, the price to each subscriber
being two hundred pounds sterling, or about one thousand
dollars.

His book, in whose pages the birds seemed to live in
their most delightful attitudes, had excited universal ad-
miration. It became the custom among titled and notable
people to offer Audubon receptions, dinners, and elegant
hospitalities wherever he traveled, and he became the social
lion of Edinburgh. The tales of Sir Walter Scott had
thrown their charm over him in the American forests, and
he hoped to meet the " Great Unknown," as Sir Walter was
called, with the thrilling enthusiasm that one feels whose
imagination makes gods of men.

But he was miserably poor. Whether he would

gain a competence for his work depended upon the number

of subscribers he could secure. He was sometimes elated

and sometimes suppressed in his efforts to act as his own

agent. He sometimes dined from tables of gold and silver
10 145

146 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

services, and sometimes wondered how he could shift to gain
a meal.

He was going to London, and his fame had gone before
him. He would there meet Sir Thomas Lawrence, the
almost idolized portrait-painter, whose fame filled the
world.

More, he would there meet the famous Albert Gallatin,
the United States minister, a man of the rarest accomplish-
ments, who was schooled in all the arts of diplomacy, and
to whom Jefferson and Adams had intrusted the choicest
service of state. Gallatin, born at Geneva, Switzerland,
had become an American. He knew well the courts of
Europe.

" Here/' thought Audubon, " is the man for whose serv-
ice I have waited. He will procure for me the patronage
of the king."

So he went to London full of hope.

He was banqueted by noblemen, given receptions by
learned societies; his plates filled the learned with wonder,
but his pockets were empty. What should he do ?

He painted pictures secretly by day and sold them at
night as secretly to the paint stores, sometimes in Jewish
quarters, and the trade-folks' places. Imagine him wander-
ing by lamplight along the Strand, unknown, a common
pedler, selling his beautiful art for small sums, then going-
back over the bridges to his quarters to prepare to meet
some illustrious person at a dinner in some fine old hall!

THE SIGNATURE OF THE KING 147

What would his hosts have said had they met him going to
the cheap stores on that Strand?

Sir Thomas Lawrence brought him purchasers for his
pictures and proved a kindly friend. But here is a picture
of the life of Audubon in those London days when he was
hoping to meet Gallatin and be introduced to the king:

" One day my engraver called to say that I must pay
him sixty pounds on the following Saturday.

" I was not only not worth one penny, but had actually
borrowed five pounds a few days before to purchase ma-
terials for my pictures. The pictures which Sir Thomas
sold for me enabled me to pay my borrowed money and to
meet the demands of my engraver.

" At that time I painted all day, and sold my work dur-
ing the dusky hours of evening, as I walked through the
Strand and other places that the Jews controlled, hopping
in and out of the Jewish shops, or other places, and never
refusing the offers made to me for pictures fresh from the
easel.

" Years passed. Better days came, and when I sought
these pictures that I sold in the days of my darkness I
could not find one of them." Such is the value of good
work.

One thing consoled him always in his days of poverty:
his plates represented perfect work; the best at last is cer-
tain to find the reward of its own gravitation.

He must now have wondered if the pious prophecy of

148 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

the old French knitting-woman of Xantes would become
true: " Seest thou the man diligent in his business? He
shall stand before kings — I tell you, commodore, he shall
stand before kings; he shall not stand before mean men."

The king! It was in the luxury-loving, lazy times of
George IV, " the first gentleman in Europe," as he was
called. The weak, merry king only thought of to-day, and
never much of to-morrow, and more of his own comfort
than of his empire. Would such a king ever have an hour
to give to a book like the Birds of America? America!
what was America to him but a distasteful memory? But
the American birds were not to blame for that.

Audubon first sought an introduction to the king
through Sir Robert Peel, but Peel, well knowing the habits
of the king, caused the letter to be returned.

The heart of Audubon sank, but it rose again. Was
not his perfect work, and what had the pious old French-
woman of Xantes said? The worth of his work and the
assurance in his soul that he had earned the fulfilment of
the Biblical law nerved him to a sudden resolution.

" I made up my mind," he said, " to go directly to the
American minister, Mr. Gallatin, and to learn from him
how to proceed. Was there no mode of approaching the
king nearer than by passing his castle? I wanted to have
the opinion of one capable of deciding the matter.

" So I entered Mr. Gallatin's presence. The minister
extraordinary said :

THE SIGNATURE OF THE KING 149

" ' I am always at home when I am not out.' I under-
stood his meaning."

Audubon then astonished the minister by saying:

" I wish to have an interview with the king."

" The king? "

" Yes, with his Majesty himself. I wish to introduce
to him my plates."

Mr. Gallatin's face lighted up with wonder.

The audacity of the plan must have seemed comical
indeed. He said, and we here quote nearly Audubon's own
words :

" "What a simple man you must be to believe what is
said to you about being introduced to his Majesty! It is
impossible, my dear sir — impossible. The king sees no-
body."

This was a hammer-stroke; but, as if to make the nail
fast and sure, he added:

" He has the gout."
And as if that were not sufficient to silence the Amer-
ican woodman forever:

" He is peevish, and spends his time playing whist at a
shilling a "

This seemed to shut all doors, and the minister extraor-
dinary proceeded to illustrate the hopelessness of such en-
deavor by stating his own experience:

" I myself had to wait six weeks before I was presented
to him in my position as ambassador, and then I merely

150 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

saw him six or seven minutes. He stood only during the
time the public functionaries from foreign countries passed
him. He seated himself immediately afterward, paying
little attention to the numerous court of English noblemen
and gentlemen present."

What a king was that! "With only one thought and
that of himself, and he called " the first gentleman in
Europe."

Audubon waited and thought. His faith in the merit
of his work rose again; perhaps the prophecy of the Knitter
of Nantes.

" I think," he said, " that the Duke of Northumberland
will interest himself in me."

Gallatin laughed.

" No, no. I have called hundreds of times on such men
in England and been assured that his Grace, or lordship, or
ladyship were not at home, until I have grown wiser, and
have learned to stay at home myself and attend to my own
political business.

" It requires a written appointment of a month or six
weeks before an interview can be obtained."

But Audubon kept his purpose strongly in mind. He
lingered. Gallatin at last said:

" Should the king hold a levee while you are here I
will take you to court and present you as an American sci-
entific gentleman; but of course, of course — you must not
mention vour work! "

THE SIGNATURE OF THE KING 151

« Of what value could such a presentation be to him more
than to a stuffed king in the museum?

Audubon went out into the open air.

He was more determined to secure the king's signature
than ever before.

Purpose makes a way, or breaks one. Into his purpose
had gone thirty years. That purpose was a flint, and the
spark was in it.

Audubon had found a true friend in J. P. Chaldren,
of the British Museum. This man was earnest in his de-
sire that the king should see the American birds that
lived on paper. He had a friend, Sir Walter Waller, Bart.,
K. C. B., who had the same wish. Sympathy can find its
way anywhere, even into the doors of a lazy and luxuri-
ous king.

" I will myself show the work to the king," said Sir
Walter.

So Sir Walter went to his Majesty with the lively and
enthralling portfolio.

" It is fine," said his Majesty, " fine! "

He examined it with delight. The birds won his heart.
The perfect work made for an hour a true king.

" I will subscribe for it myself," he said, " not as a
king, but as a gentleman"

Truly there was a saving remnant in the heart of self-
loving George IV.

" Not as a king, but as a gentleman! "

152 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

That signature would have twice the value of a poor,
bored king, who felt that his position compelled him to
subscribe.

That was not all.

" He may publish the work under my special patronage,
approbation, and protection! "

Perfect work had won its reward.

The Knitter of Nantes might not have been a prophet-
ess; good people do not need visions to see the end of a
spiritual gravitation.

Sir Walter delivered the king's messages to Audu-
bon.

His heart arose to heaven, as into the clear light of
God. He saw the invisible hand that had led him.

Impossible? The things that seem impossible to limited
reason are not so to intuition and faith. Faith leaves the
peak like an eagle and mounts into the sunlight through the
gathering cloud.

This chapter is practically true, and we have written
few chapters that convey a more significant lesson for those
who must toil against obstacles and await results. Truly,
" faith is the evidence of things not seen! "

Could his father have seen that day, or the old Knitter
at Nantes!

But there were three that must know all — they had
had faith in him; they had been his life — his wife, Victor,
and John.

THE SIGNATURE OF THE KIXG 153

Another event happened that made his fame secure.
To the signature of the English king there came afterward
to be added that of Louis Philippe of France.

He returned to America to his faithful son and wife.
The joy of the reunion was such as could only have fol-
lowed such an experience as theirs, in which each had been
" true to his own."

" We have done our best for you in helping you to build
up your work; now we will become your agents," said the
faithful wife. So said Victor.

They became agents for the work, The American Birds.
The price was one thousand dollars. We anticipate events
to say that one hundred and seventy subscribers were at last
secured, and Audubon was left a fortune out of the sale,
after the cost of the production, which had been largely
advanced through the influence of Sir Thomas Lawrence,
had been paid.

Audubon went to Washington with his wife. Andrew
Jackson was President, and that was a proud hour in the
naturalist's life when he, whose work had received the sig-
natures of two kings, seated " Lucy " at the banquet table
in the White House beside the courtly President of the
Lrnited States.

Victor prepared to paint animals. The father and
son planned to visit the great West and to prepare a work
on The Quadrupeds of America. Catlin had painted the
Indian types of the prairies; Audubon wished to preserve

154 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

the likenesses of the great animals that, like the Indians,
were passing away.

To this great work the father and son now devoted
their lives. Victor visited England in his interests.

Audubon made his home at a beautiful retreat on the
Hudson River, which he named for his wife. It is now
called " Audubon Park," and is within the city limits.

The world honored him now with gifts, medals, and
titles. With these he adorned the walls of his beautiful
home. He associated his son John, as well as Victor, in his
work. These were coronation days.

CHAPTEK XIX

AUDUBON VISITS BARON ROTHSCHILD

Audubon acted as his own agent. The portfolio is still
seen in which he used to carry his drawings from place to
place, to show them to people whom he thought able to
subscribe for them.

He shared the friendship of some of the most notable
people of the world, among them the leading minds of
courts and of scientific societies. His visits to rich and
penurious people were in a few cases amusing.

In 1834 he and his wife and son John sailed for Liver-
pool in a packet, and had what was then deemed a won-
derfully favorable voyage of only nineteen days. His son
Victor was found to have conducted his business very suc-
cessfully. Audubon had taken out letters of introduction
from leading Americans to notable people; these he now
proceeded to deliver.

One of these letters was to Baron Rothschild, the
money-king of Europe. The baron had arisen to his power-
ful position as a money-lender from comparative poverty.

His position in Europe became so powerful that Wendell

155

156 IN THE DAYS 0F AUDUBON

Phillips once said of the house, " Then Baron Rothschild
said, ' ^Napoleon, be king/ and Xapoleon was king."

Audubon went to the usurer's London office, where the
baron then was. The counting-house of the baron was an
unpretentious-looking building; there was no pomp or cere-
mony there. Audubon, probably with his portfolio under
his arm, went to the place and entered the money-lender's
office without hindrance and introduced himself to the
gusty baron.

The baron was a corpulent man with a red face and a
brusque manner, and was preoccupied with his work of
treasury-making. He " seemed to care for no one in the
world beside himself."

Audubon said:

" Baron Rothschild, I think. May I offer you my cre-
dentials? "

" Is it a letter of business or merely one of introduc-
tion? " asked the baron, coldly as Socrates.

" I can not tell," said Audubon awkwardly. " I have
not read the letter which I bring to you."

" Let me have it," said the man of " golden oppor-
tunities."

The baron glanced over the letter as if it were an im-
pertinence, and said:

" This is only a letter of introduction. I suspect that
you are a publisher of a book or something or other, and
want my subscription."

AUDUBON VISITS BARON ROTHSCHILD 157

Says Audubon of the baron's manner:

" Had a man the size of a mountain spoken to me in
that arrogant style in America I would have resented it:
but as it was, it seemed well for me to swallow my disgust
as best I could."

" I shall be honored, baron, if you would give me your
subscription to my Birds of America."

" ' Sir/ said he [we can imagine in what a tone] , ' I
never sign my name to any subscription list; but you may
send me your work, and I will pay for a copy of it.' '

His next words annihilated the further expectations of
the agent. He said:

" Sir, I am busy. Good morning."

The baron did not care to see any mocking-birds, wrens,
or mountain eagles.

But a few clays afterward Audubon sent to the money
king his first volume.

It was followed by other volumes, but to these consign-
ments the baron made no reply. He was " too busy."

At last Audubon sent the baron his bill by his agent.

The baron found a spare moment to look at it; he
looked at bills if not at subscription books.

He must have jumped when he saw the bill; certainly,
it filled him with amazement.

" What! " exclaimed he; " what! a hundred pounds for
birds! I will give you Hve pounds" (twenty-five dollars),
" and not a farthing more."

158 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

" But, baron/' said the agent, " the work is magnificent
and very expensive. It will delight the baroness and your
children."

" I can't help that. I will give you five pounds for it;
I will give you just that and no more."

" Then you must return the volumes," said the agent.
" Your subscription is a legal matter."

But Audubon had not the means to bring a suit against
the money-lender, who thought that he could not spare one
thousand dollars for a book of birds, no matter what it
cost human science and human achievement to produce.

Birds did not appeal to the baron:

" A primrose by the river's brim
A yellow primrose was to him,
And it was nothing more."J

CHAPTER XX

THE CZAR'S GOLDEN SXUFF-BOX AUDUBOx's FOREST TALES

Xicholas I, of the Romanoffs, had something of the
nature of Ivan the Terrible. It is said that Alexander I,
who was a benevolent monarch, desired to see the serfs
freed, and to call a council of nations to disarm Europe.
However this may have been — and if it were so, the latter
were a high suggestion, which the world will some time fol-
low, for it is the law of moral life that the highest sugges-
tion shall ultimately be followed. Xicholas began ruling
with an iron hand. Wars followed. Hungary was crushed,
and the Crimean War at last broke his heart.

But on the dismal days in his palaces the birds sang, and
the old Romanoff had a soft place in his heart for the
birds.

The bulbuls, or Oriental nightingales, had a choice
window in his many palaces. These birds were the masters
of song; they made summer in winter and they kept sing-
ing-schools. It was an hour of almost divine music when
the master singer of these glorious nightingales taught his
caged school to sing.

The language of the court was that of repression and

159

1G0 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

war. But amid hard, rough councils rose the bulbuls'
songs, a bird that Byron has made famous.

Nicholas left his silent kingdom to visit Queen Vic-
toria in 1844. He would there hear the skylark smg, ris-
ing from the meadows to the very " gates of God."

In this visit to the island he was shown a very won-
derful book.

" An American forester," said one of his hosts, " has
produced a truly magnificent work on birds. He has made
the birds of the Western world to live on paper. Here is
a volume."

" I will examine it," said the emperor. " I have a pas-
sion for birds, and new birds interest me."

He turned over the leaves of Audubon's American
Ornithology. He caught glimpses of what awaited the
world in the American forest lands for the first time.

" This is truly a wonderful work," he said. " Audu-
bon? He is a French- American. "Well, such work as this
ought to be rewarded. I must recognize it."

What should he send to the life-painting Audubon?

He was a man sparing of his gifts. A snuff-box was
a common present among the nobility then, a mark of high
distinction, especially one that was a work of art.

Such snuff-boxes the emperor had for the appreciation
of men of genius. He ordered one to be sent to Audubon.
It was a work of art, probably of gold and gems, if the
traditional description of it be correct. The Czar's heart

THE CZAR'S GOLDEN SNUFF-BOX \Ql

went out to Audubon for what lie had done as the pro-
tector of the birds of America : would that it had been soft-
ened in like manner toward those who had sought to pro-
tect his own subjects!

The story of the Czar's gold snuff-box went through
Europe, and delighted the people of many museums; it sur-
prised America, filled the papers, and slowly made its way
into the backwoods, and reached at last the inn in the
forest.

And now Audubon and Victor are in America and enter
the far forests again. They are to travel wide ways.

The travels of Audubon and his sons through the Mis-
sissippi Valley, over the great Southern lagoons and the vast
prairies of the West, were the means of collecting notable
stories as well as specimens and pictures, and these the nat-
uralist, who had been schooled by the natural story-teller
Daniel Boone, wrote out with true art. He included them
in his Ornithological Biographies, and these we will wish in
part to follow to the end of this volume. They picture the
life of Audubon as nothing else can do, and the pioneer
days of America will long live in them. The past of early
pioneer times will not die while Audubon's stories live.
They are among the best American stories ever told.

11

CHAPTER XXI

A HUNT WITH A SQUATTER

To begin these stories:

In 1837 Audubon visited Texas.

In the course of his excursions there he met with a
squatter whose drove of hogs was being depleted by a
cougar, or a " painter/' as the man called the thieving ani-
mal. The squatter told the naturalist of his losses, and
asked him to go with him and hunt down the cougar.

The narrative of this hunt is one of the most interest-
ing in Audubon's tales of the forests. It is told naturally,
but with the vividness of an impressionalist. The reader
finds himself in the hunt rather than reading about it.

" Day dawned, and the squatter's call to his hogs,
which, being almost in a wild state, were suffered to seek
the greater portion of their food in the woods, awakened
me. Being ready dressed, I was not long in joining him.
The hogs and their young came grunting at the well-known
call of their owner, who threw them a few ears of corn
and counted them, but told me that for some weeks their
number had been greatly diminished by the ravages com-
mitted upon them by a large panther, by which name the
162

A HUNT WITH A SQUATTER 163

cougar is designated in America, and that the ravenous
animal did not content himself with the flesh of his pigs,
but now and then carried off one of his calves, notwith-
standing the many attempts he had made to shoot it.

" The ' painter/ as he sometimes called it, had on sev-
eral occasions robbed him of a dead deer; and to these
exploits the squatter added several remarkable feats of au-
dacity which it had performed to give me an idea of the
formidable character of the beast. Delighted by his de-
scription, I offered to assist him in destroying the enemy;
at which he was highly pleased, but assured me that unless
some of his neighbors should join us with their dogs and
his own, the attempt would prove fruitless. Soon after,
mounting a horse, he went off to his neighbors, several of
whom lived at a distance of some miles, and appointed a
day of meeting. The hunters accordingly made their ap-
pearance one fine morning at the door of the cabin, just
as the sun was emerging from beneath the horizon.

" They were five in number, and fully equipped for the
chase, being mounted on horses, which in some parts of
Europe might appear sorry nags, but which in strength,
speed, and bottom are better fitted for pursuing a cougar
or a bear through the woods and morasses than any in other
countries. A pack of large, ugly curs was already engaged
in making acquaintance with those of the squatter. He
and myself mounted his two best horses, while his sons were
bestriding others of inferior quality.

164 *N THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

" Few words were uttered by the party until we had
reached the edge of the swamp, where it was agreed that
all should disperse, and seek for the fresh track of the
' painter/ it being previously settled that the discoverer
should blow his horn, and remain on the spot until the
rest should join him. In less than an hour the sound
of the horn was clearly heard, and, sticking close to the
squatter, off we went through the thick woods, guided
only by the now-and-then repeated call of the distant
huntsman.

" "We soon reached the spot, and in a short time the
rest of the party came up. The best dog was sent forward
to track the cougar, and in few moments the whole pack
was observed diligently trailing and bearing in their course
for the interior of the swamp. The rifles were immedi-
ately put in trim, and the party followed the dogs at sepa-
rate distances, but in sight of each other, determined to
shoot at no other game than the panther.

" The dogs soon began to mouth, and suddenly quick-
ened their pace. My companions concluded that the beast
was on the ground, and putting our horses to a gentle
gallop, we followed the curs, guided by their voices. The
noise of the dogs increased, when all of a sudden their mode
of barking became altered, and the squatter, urging me to
push on, told me that the beast was treed, by which he
meant that it had got upon some low branch of a large
tree to rest for a few moments, and that, should we not

A HUNT WITH A SQUATTER 105

succeed in shooting him when thus situated, we might
expect a long chase of it.

" As we approached the spot we all by degrees united
into a body, but on seeing the dogs at the foot of a large
tree, separated again, and galloped off to surround it.
Each hunter now moved with caution, holding his gun
ready, and allowing the bridle to dangle on the neck of
his horse, as it advanced slowly toward the dogs. A shot
from one of the party was heard, on which the cougar was
seen to leap to the ground, and bound off with such velocity
as to show that he was very unwilling to stand our fire
longer. The dogs set off in pursuit with great eagerness
and a deafening cry.

" The hunter who had fired came up and said that his
ball had hit the monster, and had probably broken one of
his fore legs near the shoulder, the only place at which he
could aim. A slight trail of blood was discovered on the
ground, but the curs proceeded at such a rate that we
merely noticed this, and put spurs to our horses, which
galloped on toward the center of the swamp. One bayou
was crossed, then another still larger and more muddy,
but the dogs were brushing forward, and as the horses
began to pant at a furious rate, we judged it expedient to
leave them, and advance on foot.

" These determined hunters knew that the cougar,
being wounded, would shortly ascend another tree, where
in all probability he would remain for a considerable time,

IQQ IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

and that it would be easy to follow the track of the dogs.
We dismounted, took off the saddles and bridles, set the
bells attached to the horses' necks at liberty to jingle,
hoppled the animals, and left them to shift for themselves.

" jSTow, kind reader, follow the group marching through
the swamp, crossing muddy pools, and making the best of
their way over fallen trees, and among the tangled rushes
that now and then covered acres of ground. If you are
a hunter yourself all this will appear nothing to you; but
if crowded assemblies of ' beauty and fashion ' or the quiet
enjoyment of ' your pleasure grounds ' delight you, I must
mend my pen before I attempt to give you an idea of the
pleasure felt on such an expedition. After marching for a
couple of hours we again heard the dogs: each of us pressed
forward, elated at the thought of terminating the career
of the cougar. Some of the dogs were heard whining,
although the greater number barked vehemently.

" We felt assured that the cougar was treed, and that
he would rest for some time to recover from his fatigue.
As we came up to the dogs we discovered the ferocious
animal lying across a large branch, close to the trunk of
a cottonwood-tree. His broad breast lay toward us; his
eyes were at one time bent on us and again on the dogs
beneath and around him; one of his fore legs hung loosely
by his side, and he lay crouched, with his ears lowered close
to his head, as if he thought he might remain undiscov-
ered. Three balls were fired at him at a given signal, on

A HUNT WITH A SQUATTER iq>j

which he sprang a few feet from the branch, and tumbled
headlong to the ground, attacked on all sides by the en-
raged curs.

"The infuriated cougar fought with desperate valor;
but the squatter advanced in front of the party, and, almost
in the midst of the dogs, shot him immediately behind and
beneath the left shoulder. The cougar writhed for a mo-
ment in agony, and in another lay dead."

CHAPTEE XXII

OLD MISSOURI DAYS, OK THE WESTERN STATES AS SEEN BY

VICTOR

Xo publication, except Lewis and Clarke's Journals,
that has ever appeared presents such a clear view of the
great Western empire as it was in the early days of the
pioneers as Audubon's Missouri River Journals. These in-
valuable records, that were once lost in the back of an old
secretary, make the past live again.

Having made a name for giving to the world an im-
mortal book on the birds of the American forests, Audubon
resolved, as we said, to prepare another work on the quadru-
peds of America. It was yet the days of the elk and the
buffalo; wolves filled the prairie, and the white wolf was an
animal yet to be seen. Over the long and winding Missouri
the eagle wheeled and screamed.

The native tribes had hardly begun to disappear. The
Missouri River ran through the lands of the Sioux, Da-
kotas, and Assiniboins. Here were the remains of the
gigantic animals of a prehistoric age.

Audubon saw that the tide of a new population was

moving toward these great prairies on the winding river.
168

OLD MISSOURI DAYS 169

He saw that the Indians and great animals would disap-
pear. There came to him a desire to picture this vanishing
world — to write a history with the brush of a painter.

" My sons," he said, in effect, " you know my work in
life. I have sought to paint the life of the American for-
ests, and the work will live. The king has set his signature
upon it.

" I left France with the thought of doing this work
for the work's sake. I did not seek money or fame, but to
live my life, and fulfil the gift that Heaven had given me.
I have kept my heart pure that I might see clearly, for
only the pure can see.

"I have painted the America of birds; I now wish to
paint the America of animals. I am an old man now.
Will you leave your business and give me your help in this
great undertaking? "

The spirit of a father lives in the son, and the two sons
of Audubon saw clearly what their father wished to accom-
plish.

" Yes," said they; " go to the lands of the stolid Indians
and we will follow you, or will work for you anywhere, as
you may decide our course."

His wife was as noble. She had acted as his agent in
London. She saw what her boys bad seen.

" Yes," she said in the old-time spirit, " I will give you
all that I have to give. You have written the history of
America in birds, paint it now in the animals; one day the

170 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

people will read the history of what America was in your
work. It will be one of the truest histories ever written. "

Victor became a wonderful painter of animals.

Audubon now saw how wise had been the models that
his own good father had given him to follow. The old
sea-captain had wished him to enter the army, but when
he saw that his son had another gift, he did not oppose it;
he had opened the door of life to it. The elder Audubon
had died in 1818; he had seen his son working in poverty
in the vast forests; he had never had a glimpse of the
toiler's success except by faith.

His old teacher, the Knitter of Nantes, too, had gone,
but she so firmly believed that when the cause of success
had been made, success will come, that she never doubted
that her schoolboy would become a great painter. A right
purpose only awaits its harvest.

To picture the noble animals of the West now became
the life of each of his sons.

These were harvest years.

In March, 1843, Audubon left New York for a journey
to St. Louis and thence up the Missouri to the Yellowstone
River, a prairie country then, sixty or more years ago, now
an empire of populous States, grand cities, networks of
railways, and multitudinous homes.

He was accompanied by Victor. The heart of the father
and son were still one. On April 29th they reached
Booneville, distant from St. Louis about two hundred and

"The prairie dog hung on until I shook it off."

OLD* MISSOURI DAYS 171

four miles. It was a river journey. The steamers were
slow, running some sixty miles a day. The boats stopped on
the way on a part of this journey to enable the wood-chop-
pers to cut wood for the furnaces, for wood in some ports
of the rivers was not then offered for sale as afterward.
They reached St. Louis in the middle of April, and there
began the study of pouched rats, or gophers, sometimes
called " prairie-dogs."

His experience with the prairie-dogs was a novel one,
and represents his methods of the study of curious animals.
He says:

" The four which I kept alive never drank anything,
though water was given them. I fed them on potatoes,
cabbages, carrots, etc. They tried constantly to make their
escape by gnawing at the floor, but in vain. They slept
wherever they found clothing, etc., and the rascals cut
the lining of my hunting-coat all to bits, so that I was
obliged to have it patched and mended. In one instance
I had some clothes rolled up for the washerwoman, and,
on opening the bundle to count the pieces, one of the fel-
lows caught hold of my right thumb, with fortunately a
single one of its upper incisors, and hung on till I shook
it off, violently throwing it on the floor, where it lay as if
dead; but it recovered, and was as well as ever in less than
half an hour. They gnawed the leather straps of my trunks
during the night, and although I rose frequently to stop
their work, they would begin anew as soon as I was in bed

172 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

again. I wrote and sent most of the above to John Back-
man from St. Louis, after I had finished my drawing of four
figures of these most strange and most interesting crea-
tures.''

At Fort Leavenworth they were in the land of wild
turkeys and parrakeets. St. Joseph, Mo., was then Black
Snake Hills, a gopher territory, which little animals looked
upon the steamer as an intruder and a wonder. Indians
came riding down to the boat, the Sacs and Foxes.

It was June. The woods and prairies along the Mis-
souri were full of birds, the air was wings. Audubon and
Victor studied the shores wherever the wood-choppers
stopped to cut green wood and gather dry branches. What
would we think to-day of traveling on a steamer when the
wood had to be cut or gathered to feed the engines?

Let us present a picture of this country around bustling,
pushing, thriving Omaha, as Victor saw it on this won-
derful journey on the primitive steamers. It was known
as Fort Crogan then.

" Prairie-wolves are extremely abundant hereabouts.
They are so daring that they come into the camp both by
day and by night; we found their burrows in the banks and
on the prairie, and had I come here yesterday I should have
had a superb specimen killed here, but which was devoured
by the hogs belonging to the establishment. The captain
and the doctor — Madison by name — returned with us to
the boat, and we saw many more yellow-headed troopials.

OLD MISSOURI DAYS 173

The high bluffs back of the prairie are destitute of stones.
On my way there I saw abundance of gopher hills, two
geese paired, two yellow-crowned herons, red-winged star-
lings, cowbirds, common crow blackbirds, a great number
of Baltimore orioles, a swallow-tailed hawk, yellow red-poll
warbler, field-sparrow, and chipping sparrow.

" Eobins are very scarce, parrakeets and wild turkeys
plentiful. The officers came on board, and we treated them
as hospitably as we could ; they ate their lunch with us, and
are themselves almost destitute of provisions. Last July
the captain sent twenty dragoons and as many Indians on
a hunt for buffaloes. During the hunt they killed fifty-
one buffaloes, one hundred and four deer, and ten elks,
within eighty miles of the camp. The Sioux Indians are
great enemies to the Pottawattamies, and very frequently
kill several of the latter in their predatory excursions
against them. This kind of warfare has rendered the Pot-
tawattamies very cowardly, which is quite a remarkable
change from their previous valor and daring. Bell col-
lected six different species. of shells, and found a large lump
of pumice-stone which does float on the water. We left
our anchorage (which means tied to the shore) at twelve
o'clock and about sunset we passed Council Bluffs.

" Here, however, the bed of the river is utterly
changed, though you may yet see that which is now called
the old Missouri. The bluffs stand, truly speaking, on a
beautiful bank almost forty feet above the water, and run

174 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

off on a rich prairie to the hills in the background in a
gentle slope, that renders the whole place a fine and very
remarkable spot.

" We tied up for the night about three miles above
them, and all hands went ashore to cut wood, which begins
to be somewhat scarce of a good quality. Our captain cut
and left several cords of green wood for his return trip at
this place; Harris and Bell went on shore, and saw several
bats and three turkeys. This afternoon a deer was seen
scampering across the prairies until quite out of sight.
Wild-gooseberry bushes are very abundant, and the fruit
is said to be very good."

Little can the enterprising settlers in the fine cities
along this part of the Missouri now imagine these vanished
days of animal life.

The buffaloes were being destroyed. Mr. Audubon tells
us of four boats on whioh were ten thousand buffalo-skins.
The people on these boats lived on buffalo meat. Geese,
ducks, gulls, filled the marshes and creeks. The heads of
elks rose in safe distances, and antelopes bounded along
wood-skirted hills.

The sun rose red morning after morning; the prairies
were filled with bloom, over which south winds blew;
meadow-larks sang, all the world was full of life and joy.
Enormous elk horns were found along the shores. In some
places the ground bristled with horns.

Here and there white pelicans were seen, and the won-

OLD MISSOURI DAYS I75

der of the gaunt white wolf appeared. At a certain sand-
bar Audubon counted ten wolves feeding on the same

carcass.

They came to Fort Clarke in mid-June, and saw the
American flag floating in the air. It was a trading-post,
and near by were seventy leather tents of the Crow Indians.
On the opposite side of the river was Fort Mandan, built
by Lewis and Clarke in 1804.

These banks of the Missouri are dotted with thrifty
villages now. Would the reader like to have a picture of
the place as it then appeared? —

" We saw more Indians than at any previous time since
leaving St. Louis; and it is possible that there are a hun-
dred huts, made of mud, all looking like so many potato
winter-houses in the Eastern States. As soon as we were
near the shore every article that could conveniently be
carried off was placed under lock and key, and our division
door was made fast, as well as those of our own rooms.
Even the axes and poles were put by. Our captain told us
that last year they stole his cap and his shot-pouch and
horn, and that it was through the interference of the first
chief that he recovered his cap and horn; but that a squaw
had his leather belt, and would not give it up. The appear-
ance of these poor, miserable devils, as we approached the
shore, was wretched enough. There they stood in the
pelting rain and keen wind, covered with buffalo robes,
red blankets, and the like, some partially and most curi-

176 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

ously besmeared with mud; and as they came on board,
and we shook hands with each of them, I felt a clamminess
that rendered the ceremony most repulsive. Their legs and
naked feet were covered with mud.

" They looked at me with apparent curiosity, perhaps
on account of my beard, which produced the same effect
at Fort Pierre. They all looked very poor; and our cap-
tain says that they are the ne plus ultra of thieves. It is
said that there are nearly three thousand men, women, and
children who, during winter, cram themselves into these
miserable hovels. Harris and I walked to the fort about
nine o'clock. The walking was rascally, passing through
mud and water the whole way.

" The yard of the fort itself was as bad. We entered
Mr. Chardon's own room, crawled up a crazy ladder, and
in a lone garret I had the great pleasure of seeing alive
a swift or kit fox which he had given to me. It ran
swiftly from one corner to another, and, when approached,
growled somewhat in the manner of a common fox. Mr.
Chardon told me that good care would be taken of it until
our return, that it would be chained to render it more
gentle, and that I would find it an easy matter to take it
along. I sincerely hope so. Seeing a remarkably fine skin
of a large cross fox, which I wished to buy, it was handed
over to me. After this Mr. Chardon asked one of the In-
dians to take us into the village, and particularly to show
us the ' medicine lodge.' We followed our guide through

OLD MISSOURI DAYS 177

mud and mire, even into the lodge. We found this, in gen-
eral terms, like all other lodges, only larger, measuring
twenty-three yards in diameter, with a large, squarish
aperture in the center of the roof, some six or seven feet
long by about four wide. We had entered this curiosity-
shop by pushing aside a wet elk-skin stretched on four
sticks. Looking around I saw a number of calabashes,
eight or ten otter skulls, two very large buffalo skulls with
the horns on, evidently of great age, and some sticks and
other magical implements with which none but a ' great
medicine-man ' is acquainted. During my survey there
sat, crouched down on his haunches, an Indian wrapped in
a dirty blanket, with only his filthy head peeping out. Our
guide spoke to him, but he stirred not. Again, at the foot
of one of the posts that support the central portion of this
great room lay a parcel that I took for a bundle of buffalo
robes; but it moved presently, and from beneath it half
arose the emaciated body of a poor blind Indian, whose
skin was quite shriveled, and our guide made us signs that
he was about to die. We all shook hands with him, and
he pressed our hands closely and with evident satisfaction."
One dreary day Mr. Audubon asked Mr. Chardon, of
old Fort Clarke, for a story, and was rewarded by a narra-
tive that was so remarkable that he makes note of it in his
journals.

12

178 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

IN THE DAYS OF THE PLAGUE

In the month of July, 1837, the steamer Assiniboin
arrived at Fort Clarke, having cases of smallpox. An
Indian, probably from the wilderness, stole on board the
boat. He discovered a watchman lying very still, as if
asleep, wrapped in a blanket. He tore away the blanket,
wrapped himself in it, and went away to his tribe.

The watchman whose blanket was thus stolen was a
victim of the smallpox, and lay, while the Indian thief
found him, in a dead or dying condition. The Indian took
the disease and died, and the plague spread among the
tribes; the Indians " died by the hundreds daily"; they
died within " the rising and setting of the day's sun." Their
dead bodies were rolled down the bluffs and filled the air
with deadly poison. Men shot their families and then them-
selves. It was in this way that the old Indian tribes were
decimated and disappeared.

" About this time," says Audubon's narrative, " Mr.
Chardon was informed that one of the young Mandan chiefs
was bent on shooting him, believing that he had brought the
pestilence upon the Indians. One of Mr. Chardon's clerks
heard of this plot, and begged him to remain in the store.
At first Mr. Chardon did not place any faith in the tale,
but later was compelled to do so, and followed his clerk's
advice. The young chief, a short time afterward, fell a
victim to this fearful malady; but probably others would

OLD MISSOURI DAYS 179

have taken his life had it not been for one of those strange
incidents which come, we know not why, nor can we ex-
plain them. A number of the chiefs came that day to
confer with Mr. Chardon, and while they were talking
angrily with him, he sitting with his arms on a table be-
tween them, a dove, being pursued by a hawk, flew in
through the open door, and sat panting and worn out on
Mr. Chardon's arm for more than a minute, when it flew
off. The Indians, who were quite numerous, clustered
about him, and asked him what the bird came to him for?
After a moment's thought he told them that the bird had
been sent by the white men, his friends, to see if it was
true that the Mandans had killed him, and that it must
return with the answer as soon as possible. He added that
he had told the dove to say that the Mandans were his
friends, and would never kill him, but would do all they
could for him. The superstitious red men believed this
story implicitly; thenceforth they looked upon Mr. Char-
don as one of the Great Spirit's sons, and believed he alone
could help them."

CHAPTEE XXIII

THE STORY OF HOW THE INDIANS ON THE MISSOURI
DISAPPEARED

It was forced upon Mr. Audubon to see how the In-
dian tribes on the Missouri disappeared. We know of no
narrative that pictures this episode of the Indian history
of the West like his journals. It was not only the white
man's powder that destroyed the tribes, but the plague, as
in early Xew England, that went before the coining of the
pioneers.

There are in America few tales more thrilling than
those of this terrible period.

The plague, as we have described, spread from tribe to
tribe. " The Indians grew fewer day by day." " Within
a few hours after death the bodies were a mass of rotten-
ness."

The Indians now began to kill themselves when smitten
with the plague.

A young Mandan warrior felt the coming on of the
deadly fever.

" My wife, the white man's fire is upon me. I am about

to die; go dig my grave! "
180

HOW THE INDIANS ON THE MISSOURI DISAPPEARED 1S1

The young woman had always obeyed her lord. She
marked the place where he should lie, and uncovered the
earth for his body.

With the eruptive fever upon him the young warrior
dressed himself in his festal robes; he sent for his lance
and shield, and, as attired for a war-dance, he began his
death march toward the grave which his squaw had digged
for him.

He began to sing. His voice rose triumphantly on the
air. They watched him from afar, and he went on in
measured step in his frenzy.

He came to the grave. He stood upon the earth that
was to cover him. He threw his spear and shield into the
grave, and began to disrobe, as if going to rest. He threw
his garments into the grave. Then he himself stepped
down into the grave. He swept the air with his hunting-
knife, and sank down upon his weapons and war-dress, and
his faithful Indian wife covered him with the blanket of
earth.

Another warrior died a more dramatic death. He was
a chief.

"The death fever is on me," he cried; "bring me my
steed."

His war-steed was brought and he mounted it as one
mad.

He flew on his steed from village to village.
"Destroy the white man wherever you find him; it i3

182 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

lie that lias brought you death ! " he exclaimed wherever he
met with his people. " Destroy the white man ! "

He rode on until he became so fevered, weak, and dizzy
that he could ride no farther steadily, then he turned home.

There white men came to his assistance. Their kind-
ness to him cooled his spirit of revenge, and he confessed
to them his wild ride.

" Bury me before your fort," he said, " and all my
trophies with me, and when you pass over my grave for-
give me."

A yet stranger tale is told of these days of alarm and
death. It is of a cure.

A young Indian was burning with the eruptive fever.
He probably desired to end his misery, and rolled down
into a bed of mud and mire.

The mud-bath relieved him, and he crawled out of the
mire and rested on the grass.

The sun was intensely hot, and it baked the mire on to
his body almost an inch thick.

But the fever abated. He crawled home, like a great
brick. He was speedily recovering.

His care now was to rid himself of his incasement. The
eruption came off with the baked earth, and he recovered,
but with scars.

Famine succeeded the plague. According to Major
Mitchell, a local authority, one hundred and fifty thousand
Indians — Mandans, Sioux, and Blackfeet — died. Out of

HOW THE INDIANS ON THE MISSOURI DISAPPEARED 183

the Mandan tribes only twenty-seven were left at the end
of the devastation.

It was in this way that the Indian power along the
Missouri was broken.

The Indians and the great animals were disappearing
everywhere. The mighty prairies were becoming the
graveyards of the past.

CHAPTER XXIV

A BUFFALO-HUNT A GREAT BEAR THE HAND ABOVE THE

REEDS

Audubon had made a friend of Lewis Squires, who be-
came his secretary. He went to him one day and said
to him:

" Mr. Squires, I have brought to you my Journals, and
I wish you to write in them an account of a buffalo-hunt.
Such things are passing away, and I wish to keep a true
record of one."

In Audubon's Journals was found the following narra-
tive of a buffalo-hunt in Mr. Squires's writing:

" By daylight we were all up, and as our horses had

not wandered far, it was the work of a few minutes to

catch and saddle them. We rode three or four miles before

we discovered anything, but at last we saw a group of three

buffaloes some miles from us. "We pushed on, and soon

neared them; before arriving at their feeding-ground we

saw, scattered about, immense quantities of pumice-stone

in detached pieces of all sizes; several of the hills appeared

to be composed wholly of it. As we approached within

two hundred yards of the buffaloes they started, and away
184

A BUFFALO-HUNT 185

went the hunters after them. My first intention of being
merely a looker-on continued up to this moment, but it
was impossible to resist following; almost unconsciously I
commenced urging my horse after them, and was soon rush-
ing up hills and through ravines; but my horse gave out,
and disappointment and anger followed, as McKenzie and
Bonaventure succeeded in killing two and wounding a
third, which escaped. As soon as they had finished them
they commenced skinning and cutting up one, which was
soon in the cart, the offal and useless meat being left on the
ground. Again the wolves made their appearance as we
were leaving; they seemed shy, but Owen McKenzie suc-
ceded in killing one, which was old and useless. The other
buffalo was soon skinned and in the cart. In the mean
time McKenzie and I started on horseback for water. The
man who had charge of the keg had let it all run out, and
most fortunately none of us had wanted water until now.
" We rode to a pond, the water of which was very salt
and warm, but we had to drink this or none; we did so,
filled our flasks for the rest of the party, and a few minutes
afterward rejoined them. We started again for more meat
to complete our load. I observed, as we approached the
buffaloes, that they stood still gazing at us with their heads
erect, lashing their sides with their tails; as soon as they
discovered what we were at, with the quickness of thought
they wheeled, and with the most surprising speed, for an
animal apparently so clumsy and awkward, flew before us.

186 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

" I could hardly imagine that these enormous animals
could move so quickly, or realize that their speed was as
great as it proved to be; and I doubt if in this country one
horse in ten can be found that will keep up with them.
"We rode five or six miles before we discovered any more.
At last we saw a single bull, and while approaching him we
started two others; slowly we wended our way toward
them within a hundred yards, when away they went.

" I had now begun to enter into the spirit of the chase,
and off I started, full speed, down a rough hill in swift
pursuit; at the bottom of the hill was a ditch about eight
feet wide; the horse cleared this safely. I continued, lead-
ing the others by some distance, and rapidly approaching
the buffaloes.

" At this prospect of success my feelings can better be
imagined than described. I kept the lead of the others till
within thirty or forty yards of the buffaloes, when I began
making preparations to fire as soon as I was sufficiently
near; imagine, if possible, my disappointment when I dis-
covered that now, when all my hopes of success were raised
to the highest pitch, I was fated to meet a reverse as morti-
fying as success would have been gratfying! My horse
failed, and slackened his speed, despite every effort of mine
to urge him on; the other hunters rushed by me at full
speed, and my horse stopped altogether. I saw the others
fire; the animal swerved a little, but still kept on.

" After breathing my horse a while, I succeeded in

A BUFFALO-HUNT 187

starting him up again, followed after them, and came up
in time to fire one shot ere the animal was brought down.
I think that I never saw an eye so ferocious in expression
as that of the wounded buffalo: rolling wildly in its socket,
inflamed as the eye was, it had the most frightful appear-
ance that can be imagined; and, in fact, the picture pre-
sented by the buffalo as a whole is quite beyond my powers
of description.

" The fierce eyes, blood streaming from his sides,
mouth, and nostrils, he was the wildest, most unearthly-
looking thing it ever fell to my lot to gaze upon. His
sufferings were short. He was soon cut up and placed in
the cart, and we retraced our steps homeward. While
proceeding toward our camping-ground for the night, two
antelopes were killed and placed on our carts. Wherever
we approached these animals they were very curious to see
what we were; they would run, first to the right, and then
to the left, then suddenly run straight toward us until
within gunshot, or nearly so. The horse attracted their
attention more than the rider, and if a slight elevation or
bush was between us, they were easily killed. As soon as
their curiosity was gratified they would turn and run, but
it was not difficult to shoot before this occurred. When
they turned they would fly over the prairie for about a
mile, when they would again stop and look at us.

" During the day we suffered very much for want of
water, and drank anything that had the appearance of it, and

188 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

most of the water — in fact all of it — was either impregnated
with salt, sulphur, or magnesia — most disgusting stuff at
any other time, but drinkable now. The worst of all was
some rain-water that we were obliged to drink, first placing
our handkerchiefs over the cup to strain it, and keep the
worms out of our mouths. I drank it, and right glad was I
to get even this. We rode about five miles to where we en-
camped for the night, near a little pond of water.

" In a few minutes we had a good fire of offal to drive
away mosquitoes that were in clouds about us. The water
had taken away our appetites completely, and we went to
bed without eating any supper. Our horses and beds were
arranged as on the previous evening. McKenzie and I
intended starting for the fort early in the morning.

" We saw a great many magpies, curlews, plovers,
doves, and numbers of antelopes. About daylight I awoke
and roused McKenzie; a man had gone for the horses, but
after a search of two hours returned without finding them;
all the party now went off except one man and myself, and
all returned without success except Bonaventure, who
found an old horse that had been lost since April last. He
was dispatched on this to the fort to get other horses, as
we had concluded that ours were either lost or stolen. As
soon as he had gone, one of the men started again in search
of the runaways, and in a short time returned with them.
McKenzie and I soon rode off. We saw two grizzly bears
at the lake again. Our homeward road we made much

A GREAT BEAR 189

shorter by cutting off several turns; we overtook Bona-
venture about four miles from our encampment, and passed
him. TTe rode forty miles to the fort in a trifle over six
hours. AVe had traveled in all about one hundred and
twenty miles. Bonaventure arrived two hours after we did,
and the carts came in the evening."

It is the story of an inexperienced hunter, but in this
way the buffaloes and elk and the great animals of the
Xorthwest disappeared, leaving only their white bones as
the tombstones of the monarchs of the soil. Civilization
was at war with the buffalo and all of the great animals
of the Bad Lands and the prairies that bordered the moun-
tains.

A GREAT BEAR

The forms of gigantic bears were seen among the dis-
appearing animals of this transition period of American life.

People delighted in telling hunting stories on the slow
steamers and at the trading-posts. One of these stories finds
record in Audubon's Journal, told by one Mr. Denig:

" In the year 1835 two men set out from a trading-post
at the head of the Cheyenne, and in the neighborhood of
the Black Hills, to trap beaver. Their names were Michel
Carriere and Bernard Le Brun. Carriere was a man about
seventy years old, and had passed most of his life in the
Indian country in this dangerous occupation of trapping.

" One evening as they were setting their traps along
the banks of a stream tributary to the Cheyenne, some-

190 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

what wooded by bushes and cottonwood-trees, their ears
were suddenly saluted by a growl, and in a moment a large
she bear rushed upon them. Le Brun, being a young and
active man, immediately picked up his gun, and shot the
bear through the bowels. Carriere also fired, but missed.
The bear then pursued them, but as they ran for their lives
their legs did them good service; they escaped through the
bushes, and the bear lost sight of them.

" They had concluded the bear had given up the chase,
and were again engaged in setting up their traps, when Car-
riere, who was a short distance from Le Brun, went through
a small thicket with a trap and came directly in front of the
huge, wounded beast, which with one spring bounded upon
him and tore him in an awful manner. With one stroke
of the paw on his face and forehead she cut his nose in two,
and one of the claws reached inwardly nearly to the brain
at the root of the nose; the same stroke tore out his right
eye and most of the flesh from that side of his face. His
arm and side were literally torn to pieces, and the bear,
after handling him in this gentle manner for two or three
minutes, threw him upward about six feet, where he lodged,
to all appearance dead, in the fork of a tree. Le Brun,
hearing the noise, ran to his assistance, and again shot the
bear and killed it. He then brought what he at first
thought was the dead body of his friend to the ground.
Little appearance of a human being was left to the poor
man, but Le Brun found life was not wholly extinct.

A GREAT BEAR 191

" He made a travaille and carried him by short stages
to the nearest trading-post, where the wounded man slowly
recovered, but was, of course, the most mutilated-looking
being imaginable. Carriere, in telling the story, says that
he fully believes it to have been the Holy Virgin that lifted
him up and placed him in the fork of the tree, and thus
preserved his life.

" The bear is stated to have been as large as a common
ox, and must have weighed, therefore, not far from fifteen
hundred pounds. Mr. Denig adds that he saw the man
about a year after the accident, and some of the wounds
were even then not healed. Carriere fully recovered,
however, lived a few years, and was killed by the Blackf eet
near Fort Union."

The exploring party were now in the country of the
Assiniboin Indians, the mighty Yellowstone River, of the
bighorns, and the Bad Lands, which looked like deserts of
tombs.

They were in disappearing old America, and it is the
wonder of the world that the ancient conditions of life so
suddenly vanished, and that steam, electricity, and a demo-
cratic spirit should have changed this stupendous scene of
barbarism to a high civilization in a single century.

It is the law of the world that nothing can long last
before that which is better, and never was there such an
illustration of the law of the survival of the fittest than old
America and new America on the Missouri, of which the

192 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

work of Audubon has left an enduring picture in literature
and art. He painted the past, and left it to the historian.

He went to Florida.

There were no great hotels in Florida then; railroads
did not interline the State, and the river-boats were few.
In all streams and pools appeared the alligators' heads.
Audubon wandered over the pine-barrens and under the
coverts of lacing vines, among the live-oaks, where flour-
ished the begonias and jessamines, and where almost night
and day the rapturous mocking-birds sang.

The wood-cutters or the " live-oakers " had begun to
do their work of opening the hard forests to the cold of
the north, which has come at last to make roads of freez-
ing currents of air to blight the once teeming orange
trees.

The lands in many places were so alike as to lead a
traveler to go round in a circle. The moon turned the
Stygian pools, with their webs of gray moss, into mirror-like
enchantments. Here the herons stood like statues, and the
trumpet-creepers hung their bells from the mosses.

The turtle islands, or Tortugas, in the clear purple seas,
drew thither his boat. The sea seemed filled with jewels
and the air with wings. The sunsets and sunrises were en-
circling splendors. Here he saw the turtles laying their
eggs in the sand.

Here he met the " turtlers," men of humble birth, who

ut/utyv.

!b

THE HAND ABOVE THE REEDS 193

were beginning a trade which has come to enrich the tables
of Northern cities.

One of these toilers in the semi-tropic sands related to
him a remarkable story, in substance like the following:

THE HAND ABOVE THE REEDS

"I was paddling one night/' ran the story of the turtler,
" along the sandy shore, close to the tall grass that glim-
mered in the red light of the setting sun. I was preparing
to spread my mosquito-net over me and to pass the night
in the watery, reedy wilderness.

" Thousands of bullfrogs and reptiles filled the air with
lively sounds; flocks of blackbirds were dropping down into
the coverts.

" There opened to me a little stream, and to insure the
safety of my canoe from a night storm I turned into it.

" A sight that astonished me burst suddenly on my eyes.
It was an unknown boat or yawl. It was stained with
blood, but it had no boatman.

" I paddled up to this mysterious craft in the lonely
river, and looked over the gunwale. My eyes were dis-
tended with horror. There were two human bodies in the
silent boat, and they were livid and bespattered with gore.

"Was this a ghost scene? Were the men victims of
pirates, or of hostile Indians?

" If these regions were the resort of such enemies as

seemed to have been here, I, too, might be in danger.
13

194 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

" The sun was setting; night was coming on with the
usual watery moon.

" Suddenly a sound of deep distress fell upon my ear,
distant groans as of one in mortal agony.

" I drifted my canoe on shore, and reprimed my gun,
and started in the direction of the sound.

" As I gazed with fixed eyes in the same direction, a
human hand was raised above the reeds. It beckoned.

" I pushed my way toward it.

"A head arose; then the breast of a man.

" ' Help, for the sake of mercy! '

" The face was terrible. The agony of death was in it.

" The hand fell; the head sank into the reeds, and there
was a deep silence.

" Was this a vision? Was the man dead, or was he the
victim of some foul deed, and dying ?

" I went to the place where the hand had been raised.
There lay the body of a man, wounded and mangled, and
in dying agonies.

"' Water!'

" I ran for water and filled my cup with it, and hastened
back to him. I felt of his heart, and bathed his temples.

" He had a powerful frame, and his chest was rising and
falling as in his last agony. A cutlass lay by his side. I
saw that he was a pirate.

" Darkness now fell upon the wilderness.

" ' Friend/ said I, ' do you believe in God? '

THE HAND ABOVE THE REEDS 195

' I never studied the ways of him of whom you speak.
I am an outlaw. I have been a cruel man, and I am dying
here in the swamps of reeds. I murdered members of my
own family; so I deserve my fate. Give me water and let
me die.'

" The moon rose. I pointed toward the grand sight and
said < God.'

" But his mind was not to be turned toward sacred
things.

" ' I sailed from Matanzas,' he said; ' I have money, but
it is buried where it never will be found.'

" His voice failed.

" ' I — am — a — dying — man — Farewell! "

" He fell into my arms. I could not support him. I
laid him down. He was dead.

" I went back to the boat where I had discovered the
two dead bodies. The buzzards were feeding on them."

Such was one scene of the old days of beautiful Florida.

CHAPTER XXV

In early life Audubon gave himself to the people of the
woods for the sake of his studies in bird-life and botany.
Abraham Lincoln once said, when asked how he came to
have such varied knowledge, " I am ready to learn of every
one who can teach me anything." If a man know one thing
better than another, he can well teach any one who does
not know that one thing. Audubon studied in his early
life among those who could best open to him the book of
the woods.

His associations later in life were with the same class of
men, but there were new scientists and statesmen who had
discovered in themselves a love of nature, and so gravitated
toward him as a brother. Charles Bonaparte was one of
these; Cuvier and Humboldt were others. We have told
you of Wilson and of the Greek naturalist.

Among the friends of his later years was — not Webster,
the statesman, as a statesman — Farmer Webster, of Marsh-
field.

Strangely enough, Webster was a lover of birds and ani-
196

AUDUBON AND DANIEL WEBSTER

197

mals, and he developed this love amid all the changes of
his political career. Amid all the weary hours that he
passed over the portfolios of State, his heart turned to
Alarshfield. He was in Washington the man who shaped the
destiny of the nation and of nations, but at Marshfield he
was simply Farmer Webster, and it is said that all the
farmers for miles around his estate looked happier when he
was among them.

Did Audubon love the mocking-bird? Webster's favor-
ite in the realm of nature was quite different: he came
to make the ox — the strong, docile ox — his favorite repre-
sentative of the animal world.
To raise great oxen and to plow
was his delight. He liked to
hold the plow and with his own
hands to break the soil.

Alarshfield salt meadows
were full of sea-birds. Web-
ster loved them, and to study
their haunts and habits.

He delighted in the morn-
ing hours — the hours of the
birds and animals of the woods.

Would you know what a
soul of the naturalist he had? Let us illustrate it in his
own glowing words, and you will see how Audubon and
he were brothers in heart even before they met:

if

198 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

" I rose at four o'clock, and have looked forth. The
firmament is glorious. Jupiter and Yenus are magnificent,
' and stars unnumbered gild the glowing pole.' I wish I
could once see the constellations of the South, though I
do not think they can excel the heavens which are over
our heads. An hour or two hence we shall have a fine sun-
rise. The long twilights of this season of the year make
the sun's rising a slow and beautiful progress. About an
hour hence these lesser lights will begin to ' pale their in-
effectual fires.' "

Meantime, Mr. Baker and his men are already milking
and feeding the cows, and his wife has a warm breakfast for
them all ready, before a bright fire. Such is country life,
and such is the price paid for manly strength and female
health and red cheeks.

He used to exclaim in his burdened moments:

" O Marshfield by the sea, by the sea! "

Hear him describe a morning hour on this estate by the
wide sea-meadows:

"It is morning, and a morning sweet and fresh and
delightful. Everybody knows the morning, in its meta-
phorical sense, applied to so many objects and on so many
occasions. The health, strength, and beauty of early years
lead us to call that period the ' morning of life.' Of a
lovely young woman we say she is ( bright as the morn-
ing,' and no one doubts why Lucifer is called ' son of the
morning.' But the morning itself, few people, inhabitants

AUDUBON AND DANIEL WEBSTER 199

of cities, know anything about. Among all our good people
of Boston not one in a thousand sees the sun rise once a
year. They know nothing of the morning. Their idea of
it is that it is that part of the day which comes along after
a cup of coffee and a beefsteak or a piece of toast. With
them morning is not a new issuing of light, a new burst-
ing forth of the sun, a new waking-up of all that has life,
from a sort of temporary death, to behold again the works
of God, the heavens and the earth; it is only a part of the
domestic day, belonging to breakfast, to reading the news-
papers, answering notes, sending the children to school,
and giving orders for dinner. The first faint streak of
light, the earliest purpling of the east, which the lark
springs up to greet, and the deeper and deeper coloring
into orange and red, till at length the ' glorious sun is
seen, regent of day/ this they never enjoy, for this they
never see.

" Beautiful descriptions of the ' morning ' abound in
all languages, but they are the strongest, perhaps, in those
of the East, where the sun is so often an object of worship.
King David speaks of taking to himself the ' wings of the
morning.' This is highly poetical and beautiful. The
' wings of the morning ' are the beams of the rising sun.
Kays of light are wings. It is thus said that the Sun of
righteousness shall arise c with healing in his wings'; a
rising sun, which shall scatter light, and health, and joy
throughout the universe. Milton has fine descriptions of

200 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

morning; but not so many as Shakespeare, from whose writ-
ings pages of the most beautiful images, all founded on the
glory of the morning, might be filled.

" I never thought that Adam had much advantage of
us from having seen the world while it was new. The
manifestations of the power of God, like his mercies, are
( new every morning ' and ' fresh every evening.' We see
as fine risings of the sun as ever Adam saw, and its risings
are as much a miracle now as they were in his day, and I
think a good deal more, because it is now a part of the
miracle that for thousands and thousands of years he has
come to his appointed time, without the variation of a
millionth part of a second. Adam could not tell how this
might be.

" I know the morning; I am acquainted with it, and I
love it, fresh and sweet as it is, a daily new creation, break-
ing forth, and calling all that have life, and breath, and
being, to new adoration, new enjoyments, and new grati-
tude."

The extract is a poem. Such a heart was formed to
welcome Audubon, and when the great interpreter of
the American forests came to him he found himself in
him, and was received with open arms by the Marshfield
farmer.

So the wonders of the forests of Marshfield were dis-
closed to the visitor to Boston. Webster met him at a
banquet, and made Boston delightful to him.

AUDUBON AND DANIEL WEBSTER 201

" I Lave confidence in the people of Boston," said Au-
dubon to his son. " Live among them if you can." *

Schooled in nature, Webster's love for great oxen grew.
He used to rise early in the morning to feed them with
his own hand. It is said that the cattle on the place came to
know him, so that not only the houses but the barns of
Marshfield were gladdened when he was there.

There are few more beautiful stories of lovers of natu-
ral history than one of the last days of the defender of the
Constitution. His biographer, George Ticknor Curtis, thus
tells it :

" It was also during those days of gradual declension
of his strength, and after he had become unable to go
abroad, that the incident occurred which was so charac-
teristic of him, and which has been perhaps more remem-
bered than almost anything of the same nature that has
been told of him. Mr. Webster, as we have seen, had an
extraordinary fondness for great oxen, and he took much
pains to possess the choicest breeds. He liked a good horse,
and appreciated the fine points of the animal; but he was
not a lover of the horse. I am not sure that he cared any-
thing for clogs, although, in his most active days of shooting,
he may have kept a spaniel or a pointer. But of all the
brute creation he loved the ox. Oxen were the pets of his
large agricultural tastes, and when he could not see and feed
them he missed one of his greatest pleasures. He had come
* Audubon's own words.

202 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

down one fine morning after a night of pain, and was
seated in one of the parlors that looked upon the lawn.
There he had a herd of his best oxen driven in front of
the windows that he might look once more into their
great, gentle eyes, and see them crop the grass. * It was/
said Porter Wright, in his natural way, ' his last enjoy-
ment.' "

Webster died at Marshfield, and was buried there by
the sea-meadows and by the sea.

Not the least among his influences were that he in-
spired Audubon, and honored the mission of the naturalist
as one of the noblest among men.

And Audubon also helped Webster to see glories of the
morning when the birds sang, and the beauties of the even-
ing on the farm when " the kye comes hame." Can we
wonder that Webster loved Gray's Elegy?

CHAPTEE XXVI

THE PROTECTOR OF BIRDS

Ignorance is the parent of cruelty. As Audubon
studied the bird world his tenderness toward the winged
inhabitants of the air grew. He had no camera, but he
spared the birds and animals that he made his specimens
needless pain. He came to see the rights of all creatures
as an unwritten law.

Audubon was a master of vivid writing; he almost
equaled his friend, Washington Irving.

One of the most powerful passages in his works repre-
sents the wicked work and heartlessness of the egg-hunters
of Labrador. It is worthy of being spoken of at meetings
of the Audubon societies, for it shows the true natural-
ist's heart in its indignation against cruelty to the dumb
creation:

" See yon shallop shyly sailing along; she sneaks like
a thief, wishing, as it were, to shun the very light of
heaven. Under the lee of every rocky isle some one at the
tiller steers her course.

" Were his trade an honest one he would not think of

hiding his back behind the terrific rocks that seem to have

203

204 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

been placed there as a resort for the myriads of birds that
annually visit this desolate region of the earth for the pur-
pose of rearing their young at a distance from all dis-
turbers of their peace. How unlike the open, bold, honest
mariner, whose face needs no mask, who scorns to skulk
under any circumstances !

" The vessel herself is a shabby thing; her sails are
patched with stolen pieces of better canvas, the owners of
which have probably been stranded on some inhospitable
coast, and have been plundered, perhaps murdered, by the
wretches before us. Look at her again. Her sides are
neither painted nor even pitched; no, they are daubed
over, plastered and patched with stripes of sealskins laid
along the seams. Her deck has never been washed or
sanded; her hold — for no cabin has she — though at present
empty, sends forth an odor pestilential as that of a charnel-
house. The crew, eight in number, lie .sleeping at the foot
of their tottering mast, regardless of the repairs needed
in every part of her rigging. But see ! she scuds along, and,
as I suspect her crew to be bent on the commission of some
evil deed, let us follow her to the first harbor.

" There rides the filthy thing. The afternoon is half
over. Her crew have thrown their boat overboard; they
enter and seat themselves, one with a rusty gun. One of
them sculls the skiff toward an island, for a century past the
breeding-place of myriads of guillemots, which are now to
be laid under contribution.

THE PROTECTOR OF BIRDS 205

" At the approach of the vile thieves clouds of birds
rise from the rock and fill the air around, wheeling and
screaming over their enemies; jet thousands remain in an
erect posture, each covering its single egg, the hope of both
parents. The reports of several muskets loaded with heavy
shot are now heard, while several dead and wounded birds
fall heavily on the rock or into the water. Instantly all
the sitting birds rise and fly off affrighted to their com-
panions above, and hover in dismay over the assassins, who
walk forward exultantly, and with their shouts mingling
oaths and execrations.

" Look at them! See how they crush the chick within
its shell! How they trample on every egg in their way
with their huge and clumsy boots! Onward they go, and
when they leave the isle not an egg that they can find is
left entire. The dead birds they collect and carry to their
boat. Now they have regained their filthy shallop, they
strip the birds by a single jerk of their feathery apparel,
while the flesh is yet warm, and throw them on some coals,
where in a short time they are broiled; the rum is pro-
duced when the guillemots are fit for eating, and after
stuffing themselves with this oily fare, and enjoying the
pleasures of beastly intoxication, over they tumble on the
deck of their crazy craft, where they pass the short hours
of night in turbid slumber.

" The sun now rises above the snow-clad summit of the
eastern mount; i sweet is the breath of morn/ even in this

206 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

desolate land. The gay bunting erects his white crest, and
gives utterance to the joy he feels in the presence of his
brooding mate; the willow grouse on the rock crows his
challenge aloud; each floweret, chilled by the night air,
expands its pure petals; the gentle breeze shakes from the
blades of grass the heavy dewdrops.

" On the guillemot isle the birds have again settled,
and now renew their loves. Startled by the light of day,
one of the eggers springs on his feet and rouses his com-
panions, who stare around them for a while, endeavoring
to recollect their senses. Mark them, as with clumsy
fingers they clear their drowsy eyes; slowly they rise on
their feet. See how the lubbers stretch out their arms and
yawn; you shrink back, for verily ' that throat might
frighten a shark.' But the master, soon recollecting that
so many eggs are worth a dollar or a crown, casts his eye
toward the rock, marks the day in his memory, and gives
orders to depart. The light breeze enables them to reach
another harbor a few miles distant — one which, like the
last, lies concealed from the ocean by some other rocky
isle. Arrived there, they re-enact the scene of yesterday,
crushing every egg that they can find.

" For a week each night is passed in drunkenness and
brawls, until, having reached the last breeding-place on the
coast, they return, touch in every isle in succession, shoot
as many birds as they need, collect the fresh eggs, and lay
in a cargo. At every step each ruffian picks up an egg, so

THE PROTECTOR OF BIRDS 207

beautiful that any man with a feeling heart would pause
to consider the motive which could induce him to carry
it off.

"But nothing of this sort occurs to the egger, who
gathers and gathers until he has swept the rock bare. The
dollars alone chink in his sordid mind, and he assiduously
plies the trade which no man would ply who had the talents
and industry to procure subsistence by honorable means."

CHAPTER XXVII

THE INN IN THE FOREST STRANGE NEWS

We return to the old forest inn once more. It is
toward evening, and the same people are there — Calvert,
the farmers, and the hermit of the hut at the mouth of
Echo Cave.

The farmers are weary and are resting on the bench
under the trees, some holding rakes and some pitchforks in
their hands. Their horses are eating green grass by the
wayside. Herons and birds that go in the long twilights
to feed on the banks of the rivers are wending their soli-
tary ways in the clear sky, their plumage reddened by the
flushes of the near sunset.

The woods are still. The chambers of the air hold a
" solemn stillness," save the chippering of swallows.

A lusty man came riding up to the inn. He had been
to the village and had brought the weekly mail. He spread
the letters on the open table of the shop part of the inn,
which served as a post-office, then took his weekly Wash-
ington paper out to the stoop and sat down.

" What's the news, Squire James?" asked one of the

farmers.

208

THE INN IN THE FOREST— STRANGE NEWS 209

" T\"ait till I look over the paper, and I will tell you,
should I find anything worthy of remark."

Some of the men lit their pipes; others fanned them-
selves with burdock leaves; and others sat motionless.

The reader at last looked up.

" Well, here is something strange. Calvert ! Calvert,
come out here now, and stand in the cool. I've something
to read to you."

"Well, what it is, squire?"

" Say, don't you remember that young man, Audu-
bon?"

" Yes, yes, I can see him now in my mind's eye. He
hunted chickadees."

"You laughed at him?"

"Any one would; he gave away his own property to
his sister, and he lost all his wife's fortune, and took to
portrait-painting to pay his debts. Laughed at him! I
guess I did. Why, he looked like a wild man of the woods,
always a bird-hunting and painting birds — didn't know
enough to earn his salt."

"Had you heard that he had written a book?"

"A book! What could be written about wrens, and
chickadees, and owls? Who does he expect is going to
read it?"

" He has been selling it by subscription."

"What does he ask for it?"

" A thousand dollars a copy, I am told."
14

210 IN THE DAYS OP AUDUBON

" A thousand dollars! Has any one bought one yet? "

" Yes."

"Who?"

" The king."

" You don't say that. Squire, you are joking! "

" No, no. I have just been reading something in the
paper about him. What do you think it is? "

" That breaks me. He was about the most unlikely man
to come to any good end that I ever met. But, as I think
of it, he meant to be honest and was good-hearted, and he
loved nature, and he studied the woods as though he had a
royal commission to find out all about nature and birds and
animals, and things that we hold at small account. But,
squire, read us what the paper says about him. I hold
no grudge against him."

" He has been given a present."

" I am glad of that. I hope it is something useful.
Eew people can need help more. Who has made him a
present? "

" The emperor."

" You don't say so, squire! What emperor?"

" The Czar."

aThe Czar of Russia?"

" The Czar of Russia."

"How did the Czar of Russia hear of him?"

" He has seen the birds that he painted."

"What, those that he painted out here?"

"A thousand dollars a copy

THE INN IN THE FOREST— STRANGE NEWS 211

" Yes, the birds of the American forest."

" The chickadees, and herons, and eagles? "

" Yes."

" Who showed them to him? "

" A court botanist. The Czar has been visiting Eng-
land."

" The court of Queen Victoria?"

" Yes."

" You amaze me, squire; it don't seem possible! I knew
that man had a purpose in him; I could see it in his eye.
What is it the Czar has given him? "

" A snuff-box."

" That ain't much of a gift."

" But probably it is gold."

" That alters the case."

" And studded with gems, as I think. But that is
not all; for the Czar to give a golden snuff-box to a scien-
tist is a mark of the highest distinction. Audubon has
become one of the most famous men of the world. Let
me read."

He read a paragraph relating to the delight which the
Czar had found in Audubon's American Birds, which he
had examined on his visit to the English court.

The men stood up, tired as they were, to listen to the
wonderful intelligence.

" I hope he won't come this way with one of his books,"
said Calvert. " I never have made one thousand dollars

212 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

keeping store and tavern, and he, it seems, has made a for-
tune by painting a chickadee."

The strange news spread through the forest towns
around the inn. The old people remembered the tattered
hunter, his long hair and broad forehead.

The minister spoke of it in the lone church at the three
corners, and said:

" i Seest thou the man diligent in his business? ' Where
shall he stand?"

" * Before kings/ " said a forester.

So was fulfilled the prophecy of the Knitter of Xantes,
who read in the boy the laws of life that compel success.

CHAPTEE XXVIII

THE HOME OF AUDUBON ON THE HUDSON WHAT A NATURAL-
IST'S HOME SHOULD BE THE MUSICAL WOODPECKER

Let us now, in fancy, following implied facts, pay a
visit to Audubon in his serene old age. What was the
home life of this man who had left the great studies of
the historic painter David, while yet a youth, to draw and
picture American forest birds?

It is a June day on the Hudson, near the fifties. "We
steal away from the hammering, growing, pulsing city, to
Audubon Park, a place now within the city, to a country-
seat, then a little way out of the city. The home of the
naturalist is beautiful; it is shaded with noble trees; it has
two balconies, or a portico and a balcony, and the latter
looks down the winding way of the Hudson.

"We enter the grounds, and the wonders begin. The

air is full of life, the flowers are blooming, and the birds

are singing; we feel the charm of nature in happiest mood;

we stop in the grounds, where a noble elk lifts his horns,

and some fawns stand near him, and as he looks toward us

their eyes follow his.

213

214 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

Dogs are there, but the elk and the fawns do not seem
to fear them.

One of the dogs comes to meet us in a friendly way;
and, strangely enough, the fawns follow him, as out of
curiosity.

Majestic oaks are here, and elms, and a musical wood-
pecker is drumming with the singing of robins and orioles
and larks. Why should not he drum when the orchestra
in the trees needs this harmonious tree drum for nature's
true poetry?

Nature is lovely here, for everything is in harmony.
Here the bees hum, yonder sings the river.

A servant stands in an open door.

" Is Mr. Audubon in? " we ask.

" He is in his rooms with his plates. Would you like
to see him? "

The tone of the voice reveals a man, and there was
something in the servant's voice that caught the spirit of
the place. The great trees, the singing birds, the animals
in the grounds, and the serving-man all seemed to have the
spirit of Audubon. There was harmony in all.

We enter. The naturalist hears our feet, and comes
to meet us. He is thin, with an heroic head. He extends
his hand.

" We have come from the city to call on you out of
respect for all that you have done for our country," says
our speaker.

THE HOME OF AUDUBON ON THE HUDSON 215

" You are all very kind to think of me now that my
years are declining, and I assure you that you are very
welcome. Sit down where we can see the Hudson flow.
The birds sing gaily here in the early morning. I love to
sit down here, and dream of my old forest days with
Victor."

We look around. The room is full of specimens of
rare birds and skins of great animals. In one corner are
easels.

He tells us stories of some of these animals, his white
locks falling over his shoulders.

" The city is a prison," he says; " only those who live
in the country are free. I have loved the country from a
boy, and I rejoice that I can pass my old age among the
birds.

" My father taught me to do my work of life well,
whatever it might be, and to follow my inward calling in
whatever I undertook. The old servants at Mantes prophe-
sied that I would fulfil my purpose in life; in Humboldt
I saw a pattern of what I would like to do. I forsook
everything for the life of a painter of birds, and I
did this with no thought of gaining money or personal
fame, but out of love of the subject and of America.
I have failed in my plans many times in life; but
my dear wife and sons believed in me — they held up my
hands. He is a strong man who holds the love of the
family heart."

216 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

Victor comes into the room. He is a fine-looking man,
with the consciousness of moral worth on his face.

" This is my forest boy," says Audubon. " How many
hours have we passed together listening to the songs of
birds!"

" I would ask, i Does the woodpecker drum for grubs,
or to make music for other birds ? ' "

"Lucy!" he calls.

" In a moment ! "

A little woman, the very impersonation of purpose and
refinement, comes into the room.

" This is the gentle lady who left everything, and went
into the forests to nurse Victor under the trees. The dan-
ger of the fever in the woods had no terror for her. She
loved. I introduced her to the President one day, and
she dined with him; and if she took snuff, which Heaven
forbid, she might do so out of the Czar's snuff-box. Lucy
believed in me when no one else but my two sons did. I
want you to take her by the hand. I love her with the
same old love. Happy is he avIio holds a heart like hers.
It is the best of all things to be true-hearted."

Another room contains his old leathern dress of the
woods, and his portfolio cases that could not be destroyed
by the weather.

We wander about the place. All bird-life here seems
happy and contented. Wings and fur feet gravitate to
and not from the stranger.

THE MUSICAL WOODPECKER 217

We pass along the aisles of the green leaves. The
musical woodpecker is drumming again.

"Does he drum for grubs?" asks the speaker.

" Sometimes, but not now. He is drumming for sound.
He is a musician,* and his mate is near."

We turn away, and we have seen how nature may be
made a place holy.

* " Certain varieties of woodpeckers play on musical instruments for
the benefit of their mates." — Audubon.

CHAPTEE XXIX

THE LAST DAYS

Audubon died in the bosom of his family in " Minnies-
land/7 now Audubon Park, Xew York, on January 27,
1851, and was laid to rest in Trinity Churchyard, where
his monument may be seen.

" Continue my work/7 was the dying man's thought.
" Finish my work, my sons; let it live in you."

" Continue my work " was also his message to the world.
The sons of Audubon are gone, but the Audubon Societies
continue the work, and will ever do so, in the name of the
American Woodman and the Protector of Birds.

Victor Audubon, the true-hearted son and forest com-
panion of his father in the days that made the great natu-
ralist's influence, fortune, and fame, fulfilled the promise
of his peculiar education. He became a notable painter
of animals, and thus completed his father's work. His
whole career shows what a boy may be to a father to whom
has been given some noble and self-sacrificing work to do,
who is " true to his own."

Thus, somewhat after the manner of fiction, but always

fiction true to the spirit of fact, we have tried to present a
218

Monument in Trinity Cemetery, Amsterdam Avenue,
New York.

THE LAST DAYS 219

view of the life of the great naturalist. "VTe must ask the
reader to continue this book by reading Audubon's Orni-
thological Biographies," and then by studying nature with
a camera, and reading the book of God in the real birds
among the leaves of the trees.
"Continue the work!"

* These are published by the Scribners, with the naturalist's journals
and memoirs.

APPENDIX

HOW TO FORM AN AUDUBON SOCIETY
SUGGESTIONS AND SELECTIONS FOR CLUBS

No bad man is known to have loved birds and to have
made them his friends. Friendship with birds stands for
all that is best in life.

A generation ago a man who would paint a bird must
sacrifice the life of the bird. The camera has now made
this shutting out of the life of a bird unnecessary. The
taming of birds by putting suet and scraps on branches and
twigs of trees near glass windows brings the lone winter
bird into view without taking its life.

The study of birds is the study of many sides of nature.
Form your little club for the study of birds, and let each
member have a sketching camera.

St. Valentine's Day was once regarded as the begin-
ning of the English spring. It was, after the old poets'
legends, the wedding-day of the birds. Let the annual
meeting of the bird-lovers' society be held, when conven-
ient, on St. Valentine's Day, in winter, or, if summer time
be desirable, under the trees in the open field.
220

APPENDIX 221

Study Audubon, Wilson, Burroughs, Emerson, Tho-
reau, Frank M. Chapman, Torrey, Coues, Olive Thorne
Miller, and others, and bird pictures, and consult Chapman's
Handbook of Birds and Bird Life.

Study skill in the use of the field-camera. Note the
advice in Chapman's Bird Studies with a Camera. Let your
motto be the " protection of birds." It stands for education,
for justice in all things; it teaches the true lesson of all life.

Be able to name each bird that cleaves the air, and to
relate some story about it. Have field-classes after the
manner of the class established by the girls of Smith Col-
lege, Northampton, Massachusetts. This method is not
only heart education; it is health. It puts true love of
nature into life.

Let your club describe the birds that stay in winter,
and in the spring and summer let it study the birds as
they come from the South.

Have bird-calendars, and sit down in some woody place
betimes, and wait for the birds to come.

Watch the birds as they build their nests. Photograph
them, and put these photographs of their habits on the club-
room walls.

Fill the club-room with pictures, collected and original.
Have an Audubon portrait, if you can.

In regard to recitations, study the poetry of Wilson,
and the collections of poems on birds. Wilson was the
true bird-poet.

We submit a few selections of poems from sympathetic
authors, at the end of this Appendix, which teach the pro-
tection of birds, and which may be used in young people's
societies.

922 IN THE DAYS 0F AUDUBON

HOW TO TAME BIRDS WITHOUT CAGES

The people of Old England and New England did this
by erecting bird-houses on piles near the gable-windows.
In rural districts the bird-house was a principal ornament
of the garden; it rose high over the orchard boughs or
amid household trees.

The people of New England erected " martin-boxes/' as
a swallow-house was called, and they rejoiced in the high
sun of spring when the martin-birds first came to them.

The bluebird was a dweller in these New England bird-
houses. The wren made his nest in them. The oriole wove
her pouched nest in the tops of the high, sunny elms, and
the swallows or swifts came yearly to the chimney. There
was new joy in the household when the wings of the swift
were heard whirring in the chimney.

In the winter the same people hung meat on the bare
limbs of the dooryard trees for the birds — " liver and
lights " this meat used to be called. The chickadees fed on
it, and even the " red-headed " woodpecker in days of north-
ern storms and stress.

The robins' nests were protected, as were the nests of
the ospreys, which were thought to bring good luck. So
were the nests of the barn swallows.

These simple methods have hardly been improved upon.
There was a charm in the bird-houses of the orchards and
trees. It delighted the traveler to ride by them.

How tame did these methods make the birds? So tame
that the robins would come to the doors and call for help
if a cat wTere found climbing a tree to a nest. The old
ospreys would give a like alarm if a strange hunter were

APPENDIX 223

found near their nests in the oaks. The birds of Old Eng-
land and New England came to have a sense of protec-
tion; they came to know that the farmers' families were
their friends.

The catbird would build her nest in the hedges under
the dooryard walls. The thrushes would seek the friendly
boughs of the home trees.

1. The best way to begin the taming of birds without
cages is to erect these friendly and alluring bird cages and
boxes. The use of the camera in picturing birds now sug-
gests that these houses be erected near second- or third-
story windows where the habits of the birds can be watched
and easily pictured. The study of the nest is the study of
life, and all the kindly purposes and methods of nature are
in it; it is a parable of universal beneficence.

2. Bring the nests of the sweetest singers — as the
thrushes, the orioles, the bluebirds — as near the house as
possible under these friendly influences. It is always de-
lightful to listen to the cooings of the doves in the dove-
cote of the barn or crib. The field and forest birds may
be made as friendly. When the birds find that the family
are their friends, they will build their nests as near as pos-
sible to their protectors.

3. Having brought the birds near your home by your
friendliness, study the songs of the birds. There is spiritual
meaning in these songs. All things are one with God, their
source. The birds may be your psalter and choir. You
will love them dearly more and more.

4. Some of the kindergartners of Germany and Switzer-
land induce uncaged birds to visit the windows for nest-
building and for food. It is a part of the beneficent educa-

224 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

tion of the systems of Pestalozzi and Froebel to encourage
the birds to come to the schoolroom as object-lessons, or as
teachers from the woods and fields. Have bird-houses in
the schoolyard, and let it be a marked day when the pro-
tected young birds leave their nests.

Let the church teach this affection for the inhabitants
of the air, as did Francis of Assisi, who made the birds his
brothers; Father Taylor, of the Old North Square, Boston,
about whose head the pigeons used to flock; and Phillips
Brooks, whose church-tower is still full of wings. The He-
brews had this sense of what was due to the song wings, and
the swallow found a " nest for the young " at the sacred altar.

5. Study the birds that protect trees and crops; give
the crows and blackbirds their true place in nature.

6. Study birds that see in the night. Let the study not
be confined to day-birds, but to those that protect crops by
night seeing, by destroying aerial insects — the night-hawk,
the night- jay, the owls and bats, as if the bat were a bird.

Among these are the chimney-swallow that sleeps at
noonday, the whippoorwill of song, the herons of many
kinds. The mocking-bird is the prima donna of the night,
and sings all songs in one.

RUSTIC BIRD-HOMES

In England bird-boxes make cheerful the trees and
hedgerows around English cottages. In New England in
the last centuries, " martin-boxes " or bird-homes caused
the glimmerings of happy wings in the dooryard trees.
Holes for swallows and " St. Martin's birds " were cut
under the eaves on the sunny side of the farmhouse, and
perches were placed under them. The true spring began

APPENDIX 225

when the good wife and children heard the swallows twit-
tering under the eaves.

The boys delighted in making bird-boxes or houses in
winter. These were placed on poles, and sometimes the
hop-vines were set so as to twine around them. Such houses
in places adorned the grape arbors and cribs. They were
sometimes made in the form of a church and spire. They
are not as often seen now. They should reappear.

There came a period of rustic ornaments for the home,
rustic-work fences, verandas, and hanging baskets. This
work suggested the natural bird-house — a hollow log, like a
keg, set on gables, poles, and in the crotches of trees.

The bluebirds and wrens delight in these bird-houses.
The swallows find natural retreat in them, when they are
placed on poles, or high in trees.

They may be ornamented with rustic kinds of pine or
cedar, or a honeysuckle may be trained to grow so as to
cover them. Perches or pegs may be set at the entrance
to the hollow cavity. The hollow trunks of apple-trees
may be made roomy chambers for nests.

The migratory birds may thus be brought into intimate
relations with the family. They may be rendered so tame
by feeding and protection as to return to the same place
for many years. The pigeon-house may be fastened in this
way, and so as to form a very sightly ornament to the crib
or stable.

The limbs of trees that contain the homes of the car-
penter birds, as the woodpeckers, should be protected.
After the woodpeckers have left them to make cavities in
other trees, the bluebirds and wrens will take possession of
the old cavities.
15

226 IN THE DAYS OP AUDUBOX

Open rustic-work may be placed over a nest that is in
danger of being destroyed by a cat, as the nest of a robin
near the house on a friendly limb. The robin would be
likely to return to it a second year.

The birds that build in the walls may be protected in
this way, as also the night-birds that nest on rocks. A
friendly atmosphere makes friendly birds, and the rusticity
has a charm that is educational. Such things are kindly
thoughts embodied, and they make home sacred and the
memories of dooryard trees lasting joys. They make young
people's hearts turn home wherever they may be.

SUGGESTIONS OF TOPICS FOR CLUBS

1. Study how the birds prepared the earth for man.

2. Study the evidences of reason in birds — how they
build their nests in different ways so as to escape from
their enemies; how the partridge uses illusion to protect
her young.

3. Study the bird songs of the morning — the song of
triumph; of the evening — the song of meditation and rest.

4. Study how birds help man :

1. The birds that protect the garden and fruit

bushes, the robins, the finches, the black-
birds.

2. The herons, that extract worms from animals'

flesh.

3. The birds that protect trees by grubbing, as the

woodpeckers.

4. The birds that clear the air — the swallows.

5. The birds that destroy sap-eating insects, as the

magpie.

APPENDIX 227

6. The birds that purify flowers, as the humming-

birds.

7. The birds that protect fruit, as the bee-eater.

8. The birds that destroy the seeds of weeds, as the

goldfinch.

9. The birds that destroy larvae, as the wren.

10. The woodpecker as a meteorologist.

11. Birds like the crow, that protect more than they

destroy.

12. Birds that give warning to other birds, like the

thrush.

13. The birds' singing-schools for the young.

14. The rivalries of song in the wood.

15. The poets and the birds:

1. The Birds of Shakespeare.

2. The Birds of Wordsworth.

3. The Birds of Longfellow.

SELECTIONS FOR RECITATION AT AUDUBON
SOCIETIES

THE AMERICAN BLUEBIRD

BY ALEXANDER WILSON

When winter's cold tempests and snows are no more,
Green meadows and brown furrowed fields reappearing

The fishermen hauling their shad to the shore,
And cloud-cleaving geese to the lakes are a-steering;

228 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

When first the lone butterfly flits on the wing,

When red grow the maples, 'mid swelling buds burning,

Oh then comes the bluebird, the herald of spring,
And hails with his warblings the season's returning.

Then loud-piping frogs make the marshes to ring,

Then warm glows the sunshine, and fine is the weather;
Then blue woodland flowers just beginning to spring,

And spice-wood and sassafras budding together.
Oh then to your gardens, ye housewives, repair,

Your walks border up, sow and plant at your leisure;
The bluebird will chant from his box such an air,

That all your hard toils will seem truly a pleasure.

He fiits through the orchard, he visits each tree,

The red-flowering peach, and the apple's sweet blossoms;
He snaps up destroyers wherever they be,

And seizes the caitiffs that lurk in their bosoms;
He draws the vile grub from the corn it devours,

The worms from their webs where they riot and welter;
His song and his services freely are ours,

And all that he asks is in summer a shelter.

The plowman is pleased when he gleans in his train,

Now searching the furrows, now mounting to cheer him;
The gard'ner delights in his sweet simple strain,

And leans on his spade to survey and to hear him;
The slow-ling'ring schoolboys forget they'll be chid,

While gazing intent as he warbles before 'em,
In mantle of sky-blue, and bosom so red,

That each little loiterer seems to adore him.

APPENDIX

229

When all the gay scenes of the summer are o'er,

And autumn slow enters so silent and sallow;
And millions of warblers, that charmed lis before,

Have fled in the train of the sun-seeking swallow —
The bluebird, forsaken, yet true to his home,

Still lingers, and looks for a milder to-morrow;
Till, forced by the horrors of winter to roam,

He sings his adieu in a lone note of sorrow.

While spring's lovely season, serene, dewy, warm,

The green face of earth and the pure blue of heaven;
Or love's native music have influence to charm,

Or sympathy's glow to our feelings are given —
Still dear to each bosom the bluebird shall be;

His voice, like the thrillings of hope, is a treasure;
For through bleakest storms, if a calm he but see,

He comes to remind us of sunshine and pleasure.

THE FLORIDA IBIS
The Southern Cross uplifts one glowing star
Between the horizon and the Gulf afar;
I watch the light from the lone river bar,
And gaze across the sea —

A sea on which a hundred sunsets glow,
Whose tides around a hundred islands flow,
Where lies the sky above in deeps below —
A shadow falls on me.

Has heaven opened? — do evangels fly,
As in the prophet's heaven, across the sky?
A hundred silver wings now fill my eye,
A cloud of wings, as one.

230 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

0 Ibis, Ibis! whose thin wings of white
Scarce stir the roses of the sunset light,
When day dissolving leaves the coasts to night,
And far seas hide the sun;

From weedy weirs, where blaze the tropic noons;
Savannas dark, where cool the fiery moons;
From still Lake Worth, and mossy-walled lagoons,
Where never footsteps stray;

To far Clearwater, and its isles of pine;
From beryl seas to seas of opaline,
Those level coasts where helpless sea-conchs shine —
Thou driftest on thy way!

0 Ibis, Ibis, bird of Hermes bold,
The avatar to men from gates of gold,

That blessed all eyes that saw thy wings of old!
My thought, like thee, hath wings.

1 follow thee, as cool the shadows fall,
And burn the stars on yon horizon's wall;
And Memphian altars, as my thoughts recall,

My soul to thee upsprings!

My heart to-night with nature's soul is thrilled,
As with the fire that priests of Isis filled
When rose thy wings, and all the world was stilled
Beneath thy lucent plumes!

O Ibis, Ibis! whence thy silent flight?
O'er Everglades that only fireflies light,
Magnolias languid with their blooms, when night
Gathers from far her glooms;

APPENDIX 231

O'er mossy live-oaks, high palmetto shades,
The cypressed lakelets of the everglades;
O'er rivers dead, and still pines' colonnades,
Where sweet the jessamine grows;

Where red blooms flame amid the trailing moss,
And streams unnumbered low lianas cross;
Wild-orange groves, where in their nests of floss
The sun-birds find repose.

But hark! what sound upon the stillness breaks?
A rifle-shot — a boatman on the lakes,
An Ibis' wing above in silver flakes —
A white bird downward falls !

O Ibis, Ibis, of the tropic skies,
For whom the arches of the sunsets rise!
God made this world to be thy paradise,
Thy Eden without walls.

O Ibis dead, that on the dark lake floats,
Whose dimming eyes see not the sportsmen's boats,
O'er whose torn wing some brutal instinct gloats,
I wonder if in thee

Live not some spirit — so the Egyptian thought —
Some inner life from Life's great fountain brought,
Something divine from God's great goodness caught,
Some immortality?

Are all these paradises dead to thee —
The cool savanna and the purple sea,
The air, thy ocean, where thou wanderest free —
I wonder, are they dead?

232 IN THE DAYS 0F AUDUBON

Or hast thou yet a spirit life, that flies
Like thine own image through the endless skies,
And art thou to some new-born paradise
By higher instincts led?

Is death, like life, alike to all that live?
Does God to all a double life give?
Do all that breathe eternal life receive?
Is thought, where'er it be,

Immortal as the Source from whence it came?

O living Ibis! in the sunset's flame,

Still flying westward thou and I, the same,

Can answer not — but He?

— Youth's Companion.

THE EAGLE

BY JAMES GATES PERCIVAL

Bird of the broad and sweeping wing,

Thy home is high in heaven,
Where wide the storms their banner fling,

And the tempest-clouds are driven.
Thy throne is on the mountain-top;

Thy fields, the boundless air;
And hoary peaks, that proudly prop

The skies, thy dwellings are.

Thou attest, like a thing of light,

Amid the noontide blaze:
The mid-day sun, though clear and bright,

Can never dim thy gaze.

APPENDIX 233

When the night storm gathers dim and dark,

With a shrill and boding scream,
Thou rushest by the foundering bark,

Quick as a passing dream.

Thou art perched aloft on the beetling crag,

And the waves are white below,
And on, with a haste that can not lag,

They rush in an endless flow.
Again thou hast plumed thy wing for flight

To lands beyond the sea,
And away, like a spirit wreathed in light,

Thou hurriest, wild and free.

Lord of the boundless realm of air,

In thy imperial name,
The hearts of the bold and ardent dare

The dangerous path of fame.
Beneath the shade of thy golden wings

The Eoman legions bore,
From the river of Egypt's cloudy springs,

Their pride to the polar shore.

For thee they fought, for thee they fell,

And their oath was on thee laid;
To thee the clarions raised their swell,

And the dying warrior prayed.
Thou wert, through an age of death and fears,

The image of pride and power,
Till the gathered rage of a thousand years

Burst forth in one awful hour.

234 I^T THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

And then a deluge of wrath it came,

And the nations shook with dread;
And it swept the earth till its fields were flame,

And piled with the mingled dead.
Kings were rolled in the wasteful flood

"With the low and crouching slave;
And together lay, in a shroud of blood,

The coward and the brave.

And where was then thy fearless flight?

" O'er the dark, mysterious sea,
To the lands that caught the setting light,

The cradle of Liberty.
There, on the silent and lonely shore,

For ages I watched alone,
And the world in its darkness asked no more

Where the glorious bird had flown.

" But then came a bold and hardy few,

And they breasted the unknown wave;
I caught afar the wandering crew,

And I knew they were high and brave.
I wheeled around the welcome bark,

As it sought the desolate shore,
And up to heaven, like a joyous lark,

My quivering pinions bore.

" And now that bold and hardy few

Are a nation wide and strong;
And danger and doubt I have led them through,

And they worship me in song;

APPENDIX 235

And over their bright and glancing arms,

On field, and lake, and sea,
With an eye that fires, and a spell that charms,

I guide them to victory."

THE AMERICAN EAGLE

BY CHARLES WEST THOMSON

Bird of Columbia, well are thou

An emblem of our native land;
With unblanched front and noble brow,

Among the nations doomed to stand;
Proud like her mighty mountain woods;

Like her* own rivers wandering free;
And sending forth from hills and floods

The joyous shout of liberty.
Like thee, majestic bird, like thee,
She stands in unbought majesty,
With spreading wing, untired and strong,
That dares a soaring far and long,
That mounts aloft, nor looks below,
And will not quail though tempests blow.

The admiration of the earth,

In grand simplicity she stands;
Like thee, the storms beheld her birth,

And she was nursed by rugged hands;
But, past the fierce and furious war,

Her rising fame new glory brings,
For kings and nobles come from far

To seek the shelter of her wings.

236 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON

And like thee, rider of the cloud,

She mounts the heavens, serene and proud,

Great in a pure and noble fame,

Great in her spotless champion's name,

And destined in her day to be

Mighty as Rome — more nobly free.

My native land, my native land,

To her my thoughts will fondly turn;
For her the warmest hopes expand,

For her the heart with fears will yearn.
Oh, may she keep her eye, like thee,

Proud eagle of the rocky wild,
Fixed on the sun of liberty,

By rank, by faction, unbeguiled;
Remembering still the rugged road
Our venerable fathers trod,
When they through toil and danger pressed
To gain their glorious bequest,
And from each lip the caution fell
To those who followed, " Guard it well."

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