Watchers

the object that was pictured on the left, all simple words: TREE, CAR, HOUSE, MAN, WOMAN, CHAIR. . . With Einstein sitting beside her and staring intently at the primer, she would point to the picture first, then to the word, pronouncing it repeatedly.
    On the last day of June, Nora spread a score or more of unlabeled pictures on the floor.
    “It’s test time again,” she told Einstein. “Let’s see if you can do better than you did on Monday.”
    Einstein sat very erect, his chest puffed out, his head held high, as if confident of his ability.
    Travis was sitting in the armchair, watching. He said, “If you fail, fur face, we’re going to trade you in on a poodle that can roll over, play dead, and beg for its supper.”
    Nora was pleased to see that Einstein ignored Travis. “This is not a time for frivolity,” she admonished.
    “I stand corrected, professor,” Travis said.
    Nora held up a flashcard with TREE printed on it. The retriever went unerringly to the photo of a pine tree and indicated it with a touch of his nose. When she held up a card that said CAR, he put a paw on the photo of the car, and when she held up HOUSE, he sniffed at the picture of a colonial mansion. They went through fifty words, and for the first time the dog correctly paired every printed word with the image it represented. Nora was thrilled by his progress, and Einstein could not stop wagging his tail.
    Travis said, “Well, Einstein, you’re still a hell of a long way from reading Proust.”
    Rankled by Travis’s needling of her star pupil, Nora said, “He’s doing fine! Terrific. You can’t expect him to be reading at college level overnight. He’s learning faster than a child would.”
    “Is that so?”
    “Yes, that’s so! Much faster than a child would.”
    “Well then, maybe he deserves a couple of Milk-Bones.”
    Einstein dashed immediately into the kitchen to get the box of dog biscuits.
2
    As the summer wore on, Travis was amazed by the swift progress Nora made in teaching Einstein to read.
    By the middle of July, they graduated from her homemade primer to children’s picture books by Dr. Seuss, Maurice Sendak, Phil Parks, Susi Bohdal, Sue Dreamer, Mercer Mayer, and many others. Einstein appeared to enjoy all of them immensely, though his favorites were by Parks and especially—for reasons neither Nora nor Travis could discern— the charming Frog and Toad books by Arnold Lobel. They brought armsful of children’s books home from the city library and purchased additional stacks of them at the bookstore.
    At first, Nora read them aloud, carefully moving a finger under each word as she spoke it, and Einstein’s eyes followed along as he leaned in toward the book with undivided attention. Later, she did not read the book aloud but held it open for the dog and turned the pages for him when he indicated— by a whimper or some other sign—that he had finished that portion of the text and was ready to proceed to the next page.
    Einstein’s willingness to sit for hours, focusing on the books, seemed proof that he was actually reading them and not just looking at the cute drawings. Nevertheless, Nora decided to test him on the contents of some of the volumes by posing a number of questions about the story lines.
    After Einstein had read Frog and Toad All Year, Nora closed the book and said, “All right. Now, answer yes or no to these questions.”
    They were in the kitchen, where Travis was making a cheese-and-potato casserole for dinner. Nora and Einstein were sitting on chairs at the kitchen table. Travis paused in his cooking to watch the dog take the quiz.
    Nora said, “First—when Frog came to see Toad on a winter’s day, Toad was in bed and did not want to come outside. Is that right?”
    Einstein had to sidle around on his chair to free his tail and wag it. Yes.
    Nora said, “But finally Frog got Toad outside, and they went ice-skating.”
    One bark. No.
    “They went sledding,” she said.
    Yes.
    “Very good. Later that same year, at Christmas, Frog gave Toad a gift. Was it a sweater?”
    No.
    “A new sled?”
    No.
    “A clock for his mantel?”
    Yes, yes, yes.
    “Excellent!” Nora said. “Now what shall we read next? How about this One. Fantastic Mr. Fox.”
    Einstein wagged his tail vigorously.
    Travis would have enjoyed taking a more active role in the dog’s education, but he could see that working intensely with Einstein was having an enormously beneficial effect on Nora, and he did not