So Johnnie seldom saw anybody except "Mamma Marion" and her friends, who came to drink tea and talk about "Protoplasm," and the "Higher Education of Women," which wasn't at all interesting to poor Curly. She always sat by, quietly and demurely, and Miss Inches hoped was listening and being improved, but really she was thinking about something else, or longing to climb a tree or have a good game of play with real boys and girls. Once, in the middle of a tea-party, she stole upstairs and indulged in a hearty cry all to herself, over the thought of a little house which she and Dorry and Phil had built in Paradise the summer before; a house of stumps and old boards, lined with moss, in which they had had such a good time.
Almost as soon as they got home, Miss Inches sent to Boston for papers and furniture, and devoted her spare time to fitting up a room for her adopted child. Johnnie was not allowed to see it till all was done, then she was led triumphantly in. It was pretty—and queer—perhaps queerer than pretty. The walls were green-gray, the carpet gray-green, the furniture pale yellow, almost white, with brass handles and hinges, and lines of dull red tiles set into the wood. Every picture on the walls had a meaning, Miss Inches explained.
"Some of these I chose to strengthen your mind, Johnnie, dear," she said. "These portraits, for example. Here are Luther, Mahomet, and Theodore Parker, three of the great Protestants of the world. Life, to be worthy, must be more or less of a protest always. I want you to renumber that. This photograph is of Michael Angelo's Moses. I got you that too, because it is so strong. I want you to be strong. Do you like it?"
"I think it would be prettier without the curl-papers," faltered the bewildered Johnnie.
"Curl-papers! My dear child, where are your eyes? Those are horns. He wore horns as a law-giver."
"Yes, ma'am," said Johnnie, not daring to ask any more questions for fear of making more mistakes.
"These splendid autotypes are from the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, the glory of the world," went on Miss Inches. "And here, Johnnie, is the most precious of all. This I got expressly for you. It is an education to have such a painting as that before your eyes. I rely very much upon its influence on you."
The painting represented what seemed to be a grove of tall yellow-green sea-weeds, waving against a strange purple sky. There was a path between the stems of the sea-weeds, and up this path trotted a pig, rather soft and smudgy about his edges, as if he were running a little into the background. His quirly tail was smudgy also; and altogether it was more like the ghost of a pig than a real animal, but Miss Inches said that was the great beauty of the picture.
Johnnie didn't care much for the painted pig, but she liked him better than the great Reformers, who struck her as grim and frightful; while the very idea of going to sleep in the room with the horned Moses scared her almost to death. It preyed on her mind all day; and at night, after Johnnie had gone to bed, Miss Inches, passing the door, heard a little sob, half strangled by the pillows. She went in.
"What is the matter?" she cried.