Snow falling at night over Stoughton is a soundless thing, and the bare oaks along the back roads hold it like lace. Mass Tree Removal is out underneath while it comes down — plowing driveways open, clearing paths to doors and cars, laying sand and salt where the grade would send someone sliding. A storm is a long shift measured in passes: get ahead of it, come back, come back again so it never has a chance to set up. Around first light the route falls behind them and the town starts moving as though nothing had happened. That is the compliment this work is after.