60 JOHN JAMES AUDTJBON 



"I arrived at Bayou Sara with rent 

 and wasted clothes, and uncut hair, and 

 altogether looking like the "Wandering 

 Jew." 



In his haste to reach his wife and 

 child at Mr. Percy's, a mile or more 

 distant through the woods, he got lost 

 in the night, and wandered till daylight 

 before he found the house. 



He found his wife had prospered in 

 his absence, and was earning nearly 

 three thousand dollars a year, with 

 which she was quite ready to help him 

 in the publication of his drawings. He 

 forthwith resolved to see what he could 

 do to increase the amount by his own 

 efforts. Receiving an offer to teach danc- 

 ing he soon had a class of sixty organ- 

 ised. But the material proved so awk- 

 ward and refractory that the master in 

 his first lesson broke his bow and nearly 

 ruined his violin in his excitement and 

 impatience. Then he danced to his own 

 music till the whole room came down in 



