any
one could stop the ugly monkey's blows, the parrot was dead.

The monkey was always kept chained after that, and John James buried his
parrot in the garden and trimmed the grave with shrubs and flowering
plants. But he missed his pet and so roamed through the woods adjoining
his father's estate, watching the birds that flew through them. By and
by he did not care for anything so much as trying to make pictures of
these birds, listening to their songs, finding what kind of nests they
built, and at what time of year they flew north or south.

John James lived in Nantes, France, when he was a small boy, although he
was born in Louisiana. His father was a wealthy French gentleman, an
officer in the French navy, and was much in America, so that John James
was first in France and then in America until he was about twenty-five,
at which time he settled in his native country for good. Few men have
loved these United States better than he.

John James did not care much for school. Figures tired his head. He
loved music, drawing, and dancing. His father was away from home most of
the time, and his pretty, young stepmother let the boy do quite as he
pleased. She loved him dearly, and as he liked to roam through the
country with boys of his age, she would pack luncheon baskets day after
day for him, and when he came back at dusk, with the same baskets filled
with birds' eggs, strange flowers, and all sorts of curiosities, she
would sit down beside him and look them over, as interested as could be.

Some years later, when John James's father put him in charge of a large
farm near Philadelphia, the young man bought some fine horses, some
well-trained dogs, and spent long summer days in hunting and fishing. He
also got many breeds of fowl. It is a wonder that with all the leisure
hours he had, and the large amount of spending money his father allowed
him, he did not get into bad habits, but young Audubon ate mostly fruit
and vegetables, never touched liquor, and chose good companions. He did
like fine clothes and about this time dressed rather like a fop. I
expect the handsome fellow made a pretty picture as he dashed by on his
spirited black horse, in his satin breeches, silk stockings and pumps,
and the fine, ruffled shirts which he had sent over from France.

Anyway, a sweet young girl, Lucy Bakewell, lost her heart to him. Only
as she was very young, her parents said she must not yet be married. And
while he was waiting fo