Two in the morning, and the snow comes down through the streetlights in slow cones while the river runs black between two white banks. Seasonal Snow Removal is out in it, plowing Algonquin drives and lots, cutting the walks open, laying salt wherever the cold has glazed a slope. Snow this far up the valley arrives in every temper, wet and heavy one week, dry and blowing off the fields the next, and each kind wants a different pass. The measure of a night's work is a household that wakes, glances out the window, and simply leaves for work. Clear pavement by dawn is the entire ambition, and it turns out to be enough.