ak. But it was chiefly in the woods that the rapture and flavor of the
time ran riot in making beauty. There every fir branch swayed under a
tuft of white, and the brown refuse of the year was all hidden away.

That morning, no one in Tiverton Hollow had gone out of the house, save
to shovel paths and do the necessary chores. The road lay untouched
until ten o'clock, when a selectman gave notice that it was an occasion
for "breakin' out," by starting with his team, and gathering oxen by
the way until a conquering procession ground through the drifts, the men
shoveling at intervals where the snow lay deepest, the oxen walking
swayingly, head to the earth, and the faint wreath of their breath
ascending and cooling on the air. It was "high times" in Tiverton Hollow
when a road needed opening; some idea of the old primitive way of
battling with the untouched forces of nature roused the people to an
exhilaration dashed by no uncertainty of victory.

By afternoon, the excitement had quieted. The men had come in, reddened
by cold, and eaten their noon dinner in high spirits, retailing to the
less fortunate women-folk the stories swapped on the march. Then, as one
man, they succumbed to the drowsiness induced by a morning of wind in
the face, and sat by the stove under some pretense of reading the county
paper, but really to nod and doze, waking only to put another stick of
wood on the fire. So passed all the day before Christmas, and in the
evening the shining lamps were lighted (each with a strip of red flannel
in the oil, to give color), and the neighborhood rested in the tranquil
certainty that something had really come to pass, and that their
communication with the world was reestablished.

Susan Peavey sat by the fire, knitting on a red mitten, and the young
schoolmaster presided over the other hearth corner, reading very hard,
at intervals, and again sinking into a drowsy study of the flames. There
was an impression abroad in Tiverton that the schoolmaster was going to
be somebody, some time. He wrote for the papers. He was always receiving
through the mail envelopes marked "author's proofs," which, the
postmistress said, indicated that he was an author, whatever proofs
might be. She had an idea they might have something to do with
photographs; perhaps his picture was going into a book. It was very well
understood that teaching school at the Hollow, at seven dollars a week,
was an interlude in the life of one who would