The Signature of All Things

It is 1848. Alma has published two books on mosses and is working on a third. She has learned that moss “is inconceivably strong” (169). Although she has never left White Acre, she is respected in her field. Scholars have begun to suggest that the world is geologically older than is taught in the Bible, which Alma agrees must be true. She has categorized her own perceptions of time into four categories: Human Time, Divine Time, Geological Time, and Moss Time (170). She is 48 years old and hopes to have more time to continue her studies, though she is aware of how fragile Human Time can be. Philadelphia has changed, the US has changed, and her father is aging, but Alma thinks her life is “quiet but not unhappy” (174).

She is more fortunate than Retta Snow, who has had a difficult, unhappy marriage and recently tried to burn down her house. Alma helps George place Retta in an asylum in New Jersey where she will be well taken care of. As Alma helps her settle in, Retta confides that when she was young, she used to go about with men and take money from them in return for letting them “handle” her.