The Tar Baby and the Tomahawk: Race and Ethnic Images in American Children's Literature, 1880-1939

Please pardon me for my long delay in answering your letter. my sight is very bad and I am obliged to do my writing by daylight, and Sunday is the only time I have for it, and I can do but very little writing even then. Soon after your letter came I had a lot of business letters to write. Then on Jany 1st I was taken with grippe and spent two weeks in bed and am only beginning to feel right now. Mrs Frost was taken ill about a week after I was laid low and she is still feeling pretty miserable. There has been a great deal of grippe here.

I thank you sincerely for your kind letter. so spontaneous and full of kind feeling.

Your dear father's memory is one of my greatest treasures. I was very fond of him. he was one of my dearest friends. I have very few left. I am seventy six years of age and nearly all of my old friends are dead.

Your father and I corresponded for years. I used to write to him on blue paper and he called my letters my "blue eyed letters", I can't understand what has become of his letters to me. I tried to find them when his life was written, I am sorry to say I can't remember by whom. I went
cots.har.IMG.0201.jpgthru a lot of boxes but could not find them. and Edwin Abbey's letters too. I am afraid the box containing them has been lost. When I went to Europe in 1906 I packed everything and stored them. There are still several boxes unpacked and I may find them yet.

The dedication in Uncle Remus is the finest thing in my career. I value it more than anything that ever happened to me. no one but a man with the biggest of hearts and the kindest of feeling could have written it. I consider Uncle Remus the best thing I ever did in illustration. and I think my artist friends feel the same way about it.

My daughter in law sent eight copies to her friends for Christmas and I made a drawing in each one and have received appreciation letters from all the recipients. Which reminds me to suggest your sending me your copy and letting me have the pleasure of putting a drawing in it.

It is a source of great satisfaction to me to know that your father's reputation is on the increase. if that were possible. I read notices of his work every now and then: very appreciative.

I do a little work for Scribners but each story takes a long time. My sight is very bad. I think I could do good work if I could see for I have the feeling left. however I have compensation my son, Jack, is a very good landscape painter
cots.har.IMG.0202.jpghe has the reputation of being the best painter of the Desert on the coast. he is very successful and sells his work well and enjoys painting. he will make a good name for himself. he is only thirty-five years of age and his best work is to come. He is on the Desert now, making studies for pictures.

I am very glad to know that your friend Alley thinks kindly of me. I tried to be frank with him about his work and I know he was disappointed in what I had to say about his drawings he sent me. My advice to him is to stick to his cartooning. his cartoons are excellent. I see them reproduced in the literary digest and they are very good. well drawn and full of the point. surely that should be enough. serious illustration is full of disappointments and is very hard work. and there are so many very fine draughtsmen to compete with.

Will you please give my very kindest wishes to your family.

I thank you most sincerely for your kind letter. do write again when the spirit moves you. I will not keep your letter so long. though I could not help it this time

Arthur Burdett Frost.

Please give my kind regards to Mr Alley.