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 



