They reached Louisville, and were kindly received by a relative. How could he support his family? The outlook was not hopeful. He would try making crayon portraits. He succeeded so well that a farmer came in the middle of the night to request a picture of his mother before she died, and the work was done by candle-light.
Invited to Cincinnati to become curator of the museum, Audubon accepted, and opened a drawing-school in that city. But very little money resulted, and he resolved to seek a new field of labor. Getting letters of recommendation from General, afterwards President, Harrison, and from Henry Clay, he started, October 12, 1820, for New Orleans. Stopping for a time at Natchez, he and a companion found themselves destitute of shoes. Going to a shoemaker, he asked to sketch a crayon portrait of himself and his wife in return for two pairs of boots. The offer was accepted, and Audubon and his friend found themselves again in suitable condition for travelling. How different all this from the former easy life at Mill Grove!
Arriving at New Orleans, what little money he possessed was stolen, he could find no work, and he was obliged to live on the boat in which he had come thither. He writes in his journal: "Time passed sadly in seeking ineffectually for employment. I was fortunate in making a hit with the portrait of a well known citizen of New Orleans. I showed it to the public; it made a favorable impression, and I obtained several patrons. A few orders for portraits relieved my necessities, and, continuing my work of painting birds, the time passed more pleasantly."
He was always planning for wider opportunities to study birds for his book. In the midst of his dire poverty, he did not forget this. Now he hoped to join the expedition which surveyed the boundary line of the territory ceded to the United States by Spain, and he says, "Saw nothing but hundreds of new birds in imagination within range of my gun." But this, like other plans, came to naught, for poverty binds with strong cords, and it requires almost superhuman strength to break them.
At last, in the family of Mrs. Perrie, who owned a plantation at Bayou Sara, in Louisiana, he obtained a situation. He was to teach drawing to her daughter for sixty dollars a month, having his afternoons for his work. Her desire was, under the guise of employment, to help the poor naturalist.
