The pines at Maudslay hear a nor'easter before downtown Newburyport does. It begins as a long rush high in the branches above the Merrimack, and then the snow gets serious. Darnell Landworks goes out into exactly that — plowing, driveway after driveway, the truck lights making a small bright room in all that white, walkways shoveled down to the boards so a door can actually swing open. Storms on this coast can run two days, so the route gets driven twice, three times, however many times it takes. When it finally breaks and the sun comes off the river, everything they touched is open and ready.