Another house, where we used to be taken to play, was that of Audubon, in the park of that name.Many a rainy afternoon I have passed with his children choosing our favorite birds in the glass cases that filled every nook and corner of the tumble-down old place, or turning over the leaves of the enormous volumes he would so graciously take down from their places for our amusement.Ioften wonder what has become of those vast IN-FOLIOS, and if any one ever opens them now and admires as we did the glowing colored plates in which the old ornithologist took such pride.There is something infinitely sad in the idea of a collection of books slowly gathered together at the price of privations and sacrifices, cherished, fondled, lovingly read, and then at the owner's death, coldly sent away to stand for ever unopened on the shelves of some public library.It is like neglecting poor dumb children!
An event that made a profound impression on my childish imagination occurred while my father, who was never tired of improving our little domain, was cutting a pathway down the steep side of the slope to the river.A great slab, dislodged by a workman's pick, fell disclosing the grave of an Indian chief.In a low archway or shallow cave sat the skeleton of the chieftain, his bows and arrows arranged around him on the ground, mingled with fragments of an elaborate costume, of which little remained but the bead-work.
That it was the tomb of a man great among his people was evident from the care with which the grave had been prepared and then hidden, proving how, hundreds of years before our civilization, another race had chosen this noble cliff and stately river landscape as the fitting framework for a great warrior's tomb.