"...I am very solitary, and my only company is my dogs and cats. But
'Spec' has become so jealous now that he will hardly let me look at
the cats. He seems to be afraid that I am going off from him, and
never lets me stir without him. Lies down in the office from eight
to four without moving, and turns himself before the fire as the side
from it becomes cold. I catch him sometimes sitting up looking at me
so intently that I am for a moment startled..."

In a letter from Mexico written a year later--December 25, '46, to my
mother, he says:

"...Can't you cure poor 'Spec.' Cheer him up--take him to walk with
you and tell the children to cheer him up..."

In another letter from Mexico to his eldest boy, just after the capture
of Vera Cruz, he sends this message to Spec....

"Tell him I wish he was here with me. He would have been of great
service in telling me when I was coming upon the Mexicans. When I
was reconnoitering around Vera Cruz, their dogs frequently told me by
barking when I was approaching them too nearly...."

When he returned to Arlington from Mexico, Spec was the first to
recognise him, and the extravagance of his demonstrations of delight
left no doubt that he knew at once his kind master and loving friend,
though he had been absent three years. Sometime during our residence
in Baltimore, Spec disappeared, and we never knew his fate.

From that early time I began to be impressed with my father's character,
as compared with other men. Every member of the household respected,