Animal Antics

In October of 1948, when I was five years old, my Grandfather, Thomas Allen, wanted to stay in touch with me. I had gone home to Connecticut after spending time with him at our family's summer home in Princeton, Massachusetts. One day I was surprised to get a letter in the mail containing a delightful drawing of an elephant and a rabbit. Thus began five years of happy communication with him.

When I stayed with my grandparents, Grandad tucked me in at night with stories that he made up. The stories were often about

the character Aladdin (from later versions of "The Arabian Nights"). He kept me on my toes by throwing in anachronisms such as "Aladdin called his mother on the telephone." I had to respond with, "NO! Aladdin didn't have a telephone!" He also put animals into his pictures that did not belong with the other animals or in the pictured place. The elephant in the early pictures is an example of this. So is the appearance of Shere Khan the tiger, from Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book.

I would draw responses to his stories, but I only have two of the pictures that I drew for him.

His father, Thomas Allen Sr., was a well-known artist, and my granddad did not consider himself an artist. In order to draw the pictures in this collection, he got learn-to-draw books and used colored pencils. He accompanied the pictures with stories, which are included in this book.

He was a partner in a law firm, president of three companies, and director of two. He was an unusually devoted husband, father, and

grandfather, and had a special feeling for and rapport with all children.

My thanks go to my mother, Elizabeth Allen Nowell, who saved most of the pictures and stories that were sent to me. They arrived from

1948 to 1952.

Anna Lee Ames Robinson