Moss
Merryman, Mildred Plew
MOSS By MILDRED PLEW MERRYMAN THERE was moss on the live-oaks which surrounded the cabin, long, drooping grey strands that swayed in the wind like hair. Wisps of it fell and caught on her clothes,...
...Her hand moved through the sleazy dresses hung on hooks behind the door...
...When she turned again to the web, the wings were still...
...In the bedroom she stood hesitating, trying to remember what people wore in the world...
...She had forgotten there were such things...
...crickets ticked their codes...
...Once a cloud crawled over the sun and brought brief coolness, making the heat more intolerable after it had passed...
...I'm coming with you...
...From beneath the ginghams she drew out a dark blue silk and held it up for a closer inspection...
...I'm coming alive...
...Lizards and quail made unseen nervous rustlings in the grasses...
...Two places were set as usual...
...As the road began to grow wider, occasionally she drew aside to let a flivver rattle by...
...When she was dressed, she put a change of clothing into a bundle, went back to the kitchen and made some sandwiches for her lunch...
...As she ate, her thoughts reverted to the cabin-to her husband...
...When at last she arrived at the crossroads it was noon...
...People mingled with other people, rubbed shoulders and elbows and minds...
...I mustn't wait any longer...
...the stove was cold...
...Sometimes in the midst of her housework she would pause to stare at the road, wanting to walk and walk-walk out from under the limp grey moss, the blinding sun, back to cold white roads she remembered, lined with naked trees...
...I can't go back," she thought...
...Ever since, she had dreaded to pass beneath the trees...
...Withdrawing her gaze from the fence, she let it travel through the moss down to the swamp reeds at the water's edge and over the water lying like flat glass...
...Back and forth crept the spider, binding thread after leisurely thread to its quivering prey...
...oh wait...
...Well," he asked, as he picked up his fork, "anything doing today...
...Then with her bundles under her arm, she walked briskly down the steps and away from the cabin...
...Wisps of it fell and caught on her clothes, blew into the cottage...
...Gradually as it thickened, it choked out the life of the trees...
...Wait," she called...
...At first on coming to the country she had thought, "I'll let nothing slip-we'll live nicely as we always have...
...Far away at the end of a red clay road, the world wagged on about its interesting business...
...From the kitchen she brought beans, corn bread and coffee...
...Now they were stiff and green with mildew...
...As she twitched at the skirt to remove a wrinkle, the cloth made a ripping sound and shredded apart...
...She picked them up and stared at them...
...As the moth became tangled in stickiness, the speckled wings worked slower...
...She gasped...
...She shrugged and tossed it into a corner...
...I must get out for a little and live...
...Some were already dead, their trunks grey as the parasite that killed them...
...I have to go back...
...Often as she sat on the porch, watching the loose skeins dangle, distorting her view of water and clean blue sky, she felt as if her brain and her body were stuffed with moss...
...Once a pig crashed through the underbrush and startled her...
...At the counter of a ramshackle store she bought a bottle of pop and sat down on the steps to eat her sandwiches...
...Her hands were busy spreading a bit of corn bread with dripping butter...
...Groping through the trunk for her pocketbook, she came on a pair of gloves which had once been brown...
...I'm coming alive," she thought...
...They sat down...
...But the spell was so insidious...
...If it burns it will have to burn, and anyway, it's probably happened by now...
...He entered whistling, scanning the table for signs of supper...
...The wick burned yellow instead of blue, smudging the kettle with soot...
...He lingered to talk to the shopkeeper...
...knew she must go...
...A spider caught a moth," she said, "and wove it in...
...One morning while she was bending to dump some refuse in the trash pile, her eyes were held by a bit of minute drama...
...At every breath she seemed to draw the dust of it into her lungs...
...I must get out," she would tell herself, "here I'm almost forty already...
...In her hurry she'd come away and left it burning, the pan of beans on top...
...A straw-colored spider that lived on the fence had caught a moth and was slyly weaving it in...
...The zinnias on the table were withered...
...Sorry," he said, "be glad to take you, but I'm headed for the bayou...
...damp and rust and mold wrought subtle stains...
...I'd never dare leave again...
...Not living is stupid, sinful...
...He'll get along all right," she assured herself, "he'll have trouble at first, maybe-trouble with the pump-the stove-" At the word stove, her attention sharply focused...
...A man drove up in a truck to buy gasoline...
...Now and then she closed her eyes to rest them...
...It was hard to care when nobody ever came...
...Once she had seen an oak snake twisting from a limb...
...If I live here long enough," she told herself, "I'll grow queer...
...At the back of the cabin a red clay road ran off through miles of scrub oak toward rails that led to the north...
...Left to themselves they grew morbid, sprawled like overgrown funguses...
...Already the driver had climbed into his truck and started his engine...
...The rising sun laid a dazzle on earth and sky...
...What if the cabin were to burn through fault of hers...
...Now I'll get ready," she said...
...Minds needed rubbing together, she had discovered...
...In spite of the heat she began to feel exultant, almost free...
...No smell of burning was noticeable...
...Suddenly she grew frightened...
...The sentence ticked in her head, making a rhythm to walk by...
...The beans were on the table...
...I've got to...
...she passed farms and filling stations...
...A gingham would have to do...
...She cut others, her gayest ones, and filled the vase...
...At night when the red flares of the giggers struck behind it, or the moon cut a silver scar on the bayou's face, it became unreal as a picture on a post-card...
...he asked her...
...The speckled wings of the moth beat frantically to no purpose...
...I'll go-today 1" In the kitchen she lit the kerosene stove to heat water for the dishes...
...We'll be neat about the cabin, ourselves, our clothes...
...Suddenly after months of not noticing or caring how time drifted, she would waken to her plight...
...That can be his supper," she thought...
...She climbed the steps and hurried in...
...Which way you bound for...
...When the dishes were washed, she put a piece of pork with some snap beans and set them to cook...
...There was nobody on the road and nothing to mark the miles...
...As they drew near the cabin, she caught a glimpse of the chimney, rearing among live-oaks tangled in moss...
...There's something I've forgotten," she explained...
...She pointed toward the town...
...Going home she sat stolidly, saying nothing, wondering what she would find...
...The trail was narrow, the scrub oak high as her head...
...The harder she racked her brain to remember, the more muddled she grew...
...Eyes that had looked too long on sameness grew dull with looking...
...The country seemed much less desolate now...
...the wheels had begun to slide...
...She hesitated...
...At five her husband drove into the yard...
...Or had she...
...Through the still, hot, heavy days, her mind kept a picture of blueing snow and bare black limbs flung upward like threads of smoke...
...The truck pulled up with a chug...
...Since she would have so far to walk, she decided to wear her sun hat, her everyday shoes...
...Each morning when her husband climbed into his truck and drove cheerfully away, she seemed to drop out of life behind her curtain of moss...
...Then she brought out her battered silver and set the table for one...
...She did not look up...
...Hanging so long in the dampness, the silk had rotted like a web...
...Yet each year her will grew softer...
...people ought to live...
...I've got to go," she said aloud...
Vol. 11 • January 1930 • No. 13
