Vanderlyn at first treated him as a mendicant and ordered him to leave his
portfolio in the entry. After some delay, in company with a government
official, he consented to see the pictures.

"The perspiration ran down my face," says Audubon, "as I showed him my
drawings and laid them on the floor." He was thinking of the expedition to
Mexico just referred to, and wanted to make a good impression upon
Vanderlyn and the officer. This he succeeded in doing, and obtained from
the artist a very complimentary note, as he did also from Governor
Robertson of Louisiana.

In June, Audubon left New Orleans for Kentucky, to rejoin his wife and
boys, but somewhere on the journey engaged himself to a Mrs. Perrie who
lived at Bayou Sara, Louisiana, to teach her daughter drawing during the
summer, at sixty dollars per month, leaving him half of each day to follow
his own pursuits. He continued in this position till October when he took
steamer for New Orleans. "My long, flowing hair, and loose yellow nankeen
dress, and the unfortunate cut of my features, attracted much attention,
and made me desire to be dressed like other people as soon as possible."

He now rented a house in New Orleans on Dauphine street, and determined to
send for his family. Since he had left Cincinnati the previous autumn, he
had finished sixty-two drawings of birds and plants, three quadrupeds, two
snakes, fifty portraits of all sorts, and had lived by his talents, not
having had a dollar when he started. "I sent a draft to my wife, and began
life in New Orleans with forty-two dollars, health, and much eagerness to
pursue my plan of collecting all the birds of America."

His family, after strong persuasion, joined him in December, 1821, and his
former life of drawing portraits, giving lessons, painting birds, and