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 

 l)uild, 1 never failed to find quietude and delight." 



One day while Audubon was rambling the woods in search of 

 birds William Uakewell, 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 Frenchmen and also of most of the Ameri- 

 cans of that period. Bakewell 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. Bakewell's 

 invitation until he was driven to do it. Fie 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 as he says, "In the very lap of comfort my time was happily 

 spent. I went out shooting and hunting, drew every l)ird 1 pro- 

 cured, as well as many other objects of natural history and zoology." 



Birds Versus Business — Store in Kentucky. 



I\Iuch may be passed. Audubon returned to America and as 

 a preliminary to marriage and acting under the advice of the father 

 of his affianced, he tried to fit himself for a mercantile lousiness, but 

 it did not suit him. Birds not business were in his head. Before 

 he had sailed for France he had begun a series of drawings of the 

 birds of America and had begun a study of their hal)its. He was 

 married in the year 1808 in Philadelphia and the next morning with 

 his bride he left for Louisville, Ky. He still intended to follow 

 a business career and with Ferdinand Rozier he opened a store in 

 the Kentucky metropolis which as Audubon writes, "AVent on 

 prosperously when I attended to it. but birds were l)irds then as " 

 now, and my thoughts were ever and anon turning toward them 

 as objects of mv ereatest dclieht." 



