JOHN JAMES AUDUBON 75 



with a stock of goods with which to establish a general store in 

 the west. Louisville, Ky., was his objective point, having been 

 much impressed with the opportunities offered by the town when 

 on a brief visit some two years before. 



The party journeyed across to Pittsburg and down the Ohio 

 by boat and saw only success and prosperity for the future in 

 that great country, the development of which was only just begin- 

 ning. 



The business prospered, as Audubon says, "when I attended 

 to it," "but birds were birds then as now and my thoughts were 

 ever and anon turning toward them as the objects of my greatest 

 delight. I shot, I drew, I looked on nature only; my days were 

 happy beyond human conception and beyond this I really cared 

 not . . . and I could not bear to give the attention required by 

 my business." 



While Rozier was content behind the counter Audubon made 

 the necessary trips to New York and Philadelphia for fresh sup- 

 plies of goods, and the varied scenery of river and mountain and 

 the birds and other wild tenants of the forests of Ohio and Pennsyl- 

 vania rendered these trips periods of constant delight. 



In 1810 longing for wilder surroundings the business was 

 removed to Henderson, Ky., one hundred and twenty-five miles 

 down the Ohio, and here it was the same old story; Rozier con- 

 ducted the store and Audubon spent his time hunting and fishing 

 and in this way gratified his tastes while he also contributed not a 

 little to the support of the family. But business at Henderson 

 was not very prosperous and another move was made, this time 

 to St. Genevieve, a French settlement on the Mississippi. Here 

 Audubon became very discontented while Rozier was delighted, 

 the people being congenial to him and the business prosperous. 

 The outcome of it was that Audubon sold out all his interests to 

 his partner on April n, 1811, and journeyed back across the prairie 

 to Henderson where he had left his wife and child, happy in his 

 freedom from all business cares, and sanguine as he always was 

 when the immediate future was provided for. 



Two incidents of this early business career deserve mention. 



