”A message from home today stating that old Bob, deaf and decrepit, but the family pet and pride and protector for fifteen years, had died, halted interest in all else with me save memory of the past; and while he was only a fox terrier dog, no affair of state, nor burst of congressional eloquence, nor dream of future glory attracts my attention, and I think and think and think.
”You were just a dog, Bob, but you were a ‘thoroughbred’ in your class, and if there ever was a faithful, alert, trustworthy, loyal, mind-your-own-business, self respecting, gentleman dog, you were this illustrious ‘dogality.’
”From the evening you came from Chicago a plump, little puppy to the hour of your death, the result of paralysis, superinduced by fighting two intruding Peru mongrels at the same time, you were the trusted watchman of our home, the devoted pal of the children, and my rollicking ‘chum.’
”You could do stunts like the boys on land, in air, or in water; you showed many a pesky rat and prowling cat that life was not worth living; and the body scars you carried to your grave were so many badges of honor, for you never showed fear and never fought a dog smaller than yourself.
”No boy ever ‘soaked’ you or one of your young masters and ‘got away with it’ without being dog bitten; no man ever violently attacked you who didn’t cry, ‘Call off your dog’; and no one ever approached your home in an unseemly manner except to hear warning of your strenuous vigil or meet you face to face on the danger line of intrusion.
”Of course you occasionally erred in judgement. As I remember, you frightened Joe King into short growth, and you bit Uncle Adam Mow and Mike Henry and Huston Black and numerous other good men who called on friendly mission and found only you at home and you were not sociable with other people.
”But your mistakes were due to your loyalty to me and mine, and I’m homesick and heartsick in sorrow because I must bid you, game and companionable old fellow, this everlasting farewell.
”And so your memory shall be cherished with us as long as time lasts. Your constancy, your self-denial, and your admirable activity in the everyday affairs of the youths about you, as they grew from childhood to man’s estate, have been a help to me beyond expression, and if any fellow citizen ever mistakenly or maliciously classes me with your kind, I hope he may compare me with you, Bob.”
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