At the close of the session the author of the bill retired to Sweetbrier, in accordance with his intention to decline any further public honors. He felt that his work for the State and the Nation was done. [Illustration: FATLANDS, NEAR PHOENIXVILLE, PENNA. _Photo by Ph. B. Wallace_ See page 187] XLI MILL GROVE AND FATLANDS, NEAR PHILADELPHIA THE HOMES OF JOHN J. AUDUBON AND OF HIS BRIDE, MARY BAKEWELL About two hundred years ago, there lived in France a poor fisherman named Audubon, who had nineteen daughters and two sons. One of the sons was sent away to make his fortune when he was twelve years of age. His entire patrimony was a shirt, a suit of clothes, a cane, and a blessing. For five years he was a sailor before the mast. Then he bought a boat. He prospered and bought other vessels. After many years he had large wealth, and was trading to the distant quarters of the earth. When he was an old man he paid a visit to America. In two widely separated places, attracted by the country, he bought land. One estate was on Perkiomen Creek, near Philadelphia; the other was in Louisiana. In Louisiana he spent much of his time; and there, on May 4, 1780,[2] his son, John James Audubon, was born. Commodore Audubon wanted his son to be a seaman, and he took him to France that he might be educated for the navy. But the boy's tastes were in another direction altogether. One of the teachers provided for him was an artist, who gave him lessons in drawing that were intended as a part of his training for the profession the father had chosen for him. But the boy put it to a use of his own. On his holidays he used to take a lunch into the country, and would return loaded down with all kinds of natural history specimens. These he would preserve in a cabinet of his own devising, and drawings of many of them would be made and treasured. Commodore Audubon was not pleased with his son's habits, and he thought he would give him something to do that would distract his mind. The estate in Pennsylvania needed a superintendent. So he sent the would-be naturalist to America, with instructions to look after the estate. But the wild woods about Philadelphia offered so many opportunities for tramping and nature investigation that the estate was neglected. The house on the estate, Mill Grove, which is still standing, is near the mouth of the Perkiomen. Along this pleasing stream he could ramble for hours, with his gun or his fishing rod or his collecting instruments. Before long the attic room which he occupied was a treasure house of birds and animals and natural-history specimens. He was his own taxidermist. He would do his work seated at a window that looks toward the Valley Forge country, where Washington spent the winter of 1777-78 with his faithful soldiers. The marks of his work are still to be seen on the old boards beneath the window. These boards came from the sawmill on the estate which gave the house its name.