At four in the morning, Stoughton Center is nothing but falling snow and the lit face of the old depot clock. Whiteout snow removal is already out in it, plowing driveways and lots, shoveling steps and walkways, and breaking the ridge the town plow leaves across the end of a drive. Salt and sand go down where the ice likes to hide — the shaded corner, the pitch of a slope, the last three feet of blacktop before the street. The measure of a night's work is simple: headlights back out at six, nobody spins, nobody falls, and the first train south gets caught with a minute to spare. That is the whole ambition, storm after storm, for Stoughton and the towns around it.