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Portraits I give my self a year to make one Hundred drawings & here begin with my young friend Joseph Mason, & Dash the game-wise dog, our first productions a Telltale Godwit and hermit Thrush & further a portrait of a shoemaker and his Wife in fair trade for two pairs of boots, Dash needing none. We take our work & comforts from the woods as far as New Orleans, a penny between us. We will stay the winter. I wear my good shirt to the bookseller's to glimpse Wilson's book which is dear. Joseph & I finish 20 drawings including boat tailed Crackle, brown pelican and a Warbler not described by the Scot. I am improved, laying a ground of water colours under the pastels to prevent appearance of the paper, but the work slows with necessity, the city parries employment with expense. A few warm days we set up on the street & draw from memory faces of persons famous here, to show our skill & have some reward. Twice we are awakened to take likenesses of old men dying, and one clergyman disinters his young daughter that we can preserve her Forever. In March having made portraits everywhere we find no more sitters & leave, pockets full of chalk. 23 ...

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