edge must bear them company. Audubon in later years was given an occasion to 

 belittle his own education, but he had a greater store of learning than he was 

 given to putting down to his credit. It is perhaps a clue to the nature of the man 

 to say that as a pupil at school he loved geography and loathed mathematics. 



Audubon lived in France until he was approaching manhood. Then his 

 father found it necessary to send him back to the United States of America, which 

 Audubon calls "my own beloved country." And he adds, "I came with intense 

 and indescribable pleasure." It is necessary to pass over some of the experiences 

 of the first few months in America. Years before Admiral Audubon, during a 

 visit he had paid to Pennsylvania, had purchased the farm of Mill Grove, where 

 the Perkiomen Creek empties into the Schuylkill River. 



In one of Audubon's manuscripts, preserved in printed form in the fine life 

 of the naturalist, "Audubon and His Journals," by Maria R. Audubon, his grand- 

 daughter, we read: "At this place (Mill Grove), and a few days only before the 

 memorable battle of Valley Forge, General Washington presented him (Audu- 

 bon's father) with his portrait, now in my possession; and highly do I value it 

 as a momento of that noble man and the glories of those days." 



Miss Audubon, who edited the Journals of her grandfather, puts the Latin 

 word "sic" in parentheses after the naturalist's allusion to the "memorable battle" 

 of Valley Forge. Audubon was a little confused, apparently, as to that for which 

 Valley Forge is noted in American history. 



Audubon lived for a long time at the Mill Grove farm, and there he followed 

 almost unremittingly his bird studies. He writes of this time : "The mill was 

 also a source of joy to me, and in the cave, which you, too, remember, where the 

 pewees were wont to build, I never failed to find quietude and delight." 



One day, while Audubon was rambling the woods in search of birds, William 

 Blakewell, the owner of an estate adjoining the Mill Grove farm, called at the 

 Audubon house and left an invitation for the young naturalist to come over to 

 see him. Audubon at this time had the prejudices of the Frenchman and also 

 of most of the Americans of that period. Blakewell was an Englishman and 

 Audubon, foolish boy that he calls himself, because of his prejudice against any 

 native of the "tight little isle," did not accept Mr. Blakewell's invitation until he 

 was driven to do it. He called finally, and the first person to greet him was the 

 despised Englishman's daughter, a beautiful young woman who later became 

 Audubon's wife, a devoted, self-sacrificing wife. The naturalist speaks of her 

 as he first saw her in one of his letters to his sons: "Oh! May God bless her! 

 It was she, my dear sons, who afterward became my beloved wife and your 

 mother." 



After living for some time at Mill Grove, he returned to France, where he 

 stayed for two years. One of his first duties there was to gain his father's consent 

 to his marriage. During this time in France he says: "In the very lap of com- 

 fort, my time was happily spent. I went out shooting and hunting, drew every 

 bird I procured, as well as many other objects of natural history and zoology." 



407 



