wandering about the country, began again. His earnings proving inadequate
to support the family, his wife took a position as governess in the family
of a Mr. Brand.

In the spring, acting upon the judgment of his wife, he concluded to leave
New Orleans again, and to try his fortunes elsewhere. He paid all his bills
and took steamer for Natchez, paying his passage by drawing a crayon
portrait of the captain and his wife.

On the trip up the Mississippi, two hundred of his bird portraits were
sorely damaged by the breaking of a bottle of gunpowder in the chest in
which they were being conveyed.

Three times in his career he met with disasters to his drawings. On the
occasion of his leaving Hendersonville to go to Philadelphia, he had put
two hundred of his original drawings in a wooden box and had left them in
charge of a friend. On his return, several months later, he pathetically
recounts what befell them: "A pair of Norway rats had taken possession of
the whole, and reared a young family among gnawed bits of paper, which but
a month previous, represented nearly one thousand inhabitants of the air!"

This discovery resulted in insomnia, and a fearful heat in the head; for
several days he seemed like one stunned, but his youth and health stood him
in hand, he rallied, and, undaunted, again sallied forth to the woods with
dog and gun. In three years' time his portfolio was again filled.

The third catastrophe to some of his drawings was caused by a fire in a New
York building in which his treasures were kept during his sojourn in
Europe.