322 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 



Turkeys, 20 must admit that he attained a high degree 

 of skill. As will be seen, this acquisition was a strong 

 string to his bow; when in England his brush helped 

 largely to pay for the issue of his early plates. 



Mrs. Audubon, who joined her husband in New 

 Orleans on December 8, 1821, soon felt obliged to seek 

 employment. She engaged as nurse or governess in the 

 family of Mr. Braud, presumably the same whose wife 

 and son had received instruction in drawing from the 

 naturalist the previous autumn, and remained with that 

 family until September, 1822, when the death of the 

 child that was placed in her charge left her free to follow 

 her husband to Natchez. After attempting a similar po- 

 sition in the home of a clergyman there and finding it 

 impossible to obtain her salary, in January, 1823, she 

 was invited by the Percys to West Feliciana, 21 then a 

 prosperous cotton district, at the apex of the salient 

 made by the neighboring state of Mississippi and bor- 

 dered on two sides by the great river. Her worth was 

 evidently appreciated, for she was encouraged to estab- 

 lish a private school on the Percys' plantation, which 

 she conducted successfully for five years. 



Captain Robert Percy, who before coming to Amer- 

 ica in 1796 had been an officer in the British Navy, 

 was living at this time with his wife and five children 

 at their plantation of "Weyanoke," on Big Sara Creek, 

 fifteen miles from St. Francisville ; this town, owing to 

 its large shipments of cotton, was then at the height 



20 Now in the collection of Mr. John E. Thayer, Lancaster, Mass. 



21 Mr. Stanley C. Arthur, whose recent visit to this region has already 

 been noticed, gathered there from the lips of old residents, some of whom 

 were descendants of those who had known the Audubons, a store of reliable 

 data by which the history of the naturalist at this important phase of 

 his life is revealed in its true light; to him I am indebted for a series 

 of excellent photographs of the region, its historic houses and people, as 

 well as for much needed information. See Arthur (Bibl. No. 230), loc. cit. 



