g onset
there is no fear that the cook's galley will upset, or the screw break
loose and smash through the side, and we are not in momently expectation
of the tinkling of the little bell to "stop her." The snow rises in
drifting waves, and the naked trees bend like strained masts; but so
long as the window-blinds remain fast, and the chimney-tops do not go,
we preserve an equal mind. Nothing more serious can happen than the
failure of the butcher's and the grocer's carts, unless, indeed, the
little news-carrier should fail to board us with the world's daily
bulletin, or our next-door neighbor should be deterred from coming to
sit by the blazing, excited fire, and interchange the trifling, harmless
gossip of the day. The feeling of seclusion on such a day is sweet, but
the true friend who does brave the storm and come is welcomed with a
sort of enthusiasm that his arrival in pleasant weather would never
excite. The snow-bound in their Arctic hulk are glad to see even a
wandering Esquimau.

On such a day I recall the great snow-storms on the northern New England
hills, which lasted for a week with no cessation, with no sunrise or
sunset, and no observation at noon; and the sky all the while dark with
the driving snow, and the whole world full of the noise of the rioting
Boreal forces; until the roads were obliterated, the fences covered,
and the snow was piled solidly above the first-story windows of the
farmhouse on one side, and drifted before the front door so high that
egress could only be had by tunneling the bank.

After such a battle and siege, when the wind fell and the sun struggled
out again, the pallid world lay subdued and tranquil, and the scattered
dwellings were not unlike wrecks stranded by the tempest and half buried
in sand. But when the blue sky again bent over all, the wide expanse of
snow sparkled like diamond-fields, and the chimney signal-smokes could
be seen, how beautiful was the picture! Then began the stir abroad,
and the efforts to open up communication through roads, or fields, or
wherever paths could be broken, and the ways to the meeting-house
first of all. Then from every house and hamlet the men turned out with
shovels, with the patient, lumbering oxen yoked to the sleds, to break
the roads, driving into the deepest drifts, shoveling and shouting as
if the severe labor were a holiday frolic, the courage and the hilarity
rising with the difficulties encountered; and relief parties, meeting