322 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 
20 
Turkeys,” 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,”* 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 Naw in the collection of Mr. John E. Thayer, Lancaster, Mass. 
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. 
