58 JOHN JAMES AUDUBON 

 passage on a schooner bound for Erie, 

 furnishing his own bed and provisions 

 and paying a fare of one dollar and a 

 half. From Erie he and a fellow-traveller 

 hired a man and cart to take them to 

 Meadville, paying their entertainers over 

 night with music and portrait draw- 

 ing. Beaching Meadville, they had only 

 one dollar and a half between them, but 

 soon replenished their pockets by sketch- 

 ing some of the leading citizens. 



Audubon's belief in himself helped 

 him wonderfully. He knew that he had 

 talents, he insisted on using them. Most 

 of his difficulties came from trying to do 

 the things he was not fitted to do. He 

 did not hesitate to use his talents in a 

 humble way, when nothing else offered 

 portraits, landscapes, birds and ani- 

 mals he painted, but he would paint 

 the cabin walls of the ship to pay his 

 passage, if he was short of funds, or 

 execute crayon portraits of a shoemaker 

 and his wife, to pay for shoes to enable 



