him with a message to abate the nuisance.

Despairing of becoming successful business men in either New York or
Philadelphia, he and Rozier soon returned to Mill Grove. During some of
their commercial enterprises they had visited Kentucky and thought so well
of the outlook there that now their thoughts turned thitherward.

Here we get the first date from Audubon; on April 8, 1808, he and Lucy
Bakewell were married. The plantation of Mill Grove had been previously
sold, and the money invested in goods with which to open a store in
Louisville, Kentucky. The day after the marriage, Audubon and his wife and
Mr. Rozier started on their journey. In crossing the mountains to Pittsburg
the coach in which they were travelling upset, and Mrs. Audubon was
severely bruised. From Pittsburg they floated down the Ohio in a flatboat
in company with several other young emigrant families. The voyage occupied
twelve days and was no doubt made good use of by Audubon in observing the
wild nature along shore.

In Louisville, he and Rozier opened a large store which promised well. But
Audubon's heart was more and more with the birds, and his business more and
more neglected. Rozier attended to the counter, and, Audubon says, grew
rich, but he himself spent most of the time in the woods or hunting with
the planters settled about Louisville, between whom and himself a warm
attachment soon sprang up. He was not growing rich, but he was happy. "I
shot, I drew, I looked on Nature only," he says, "and my days were happy
beyond human conception, and beyond this I really cared not."

He says that the only part of the commercial business he enjoyed was the
ever engaging journeys which he made to New York and Philadelphia to
purchase goods.