A plow blade drops, the engine settles into its low working note, and from there the hands take over — the wheel, the shovel, the corner no machine can reach. This is snow work in Amherst, New Hampshire, where the Souhegan Valley gathers weather and the back roads off Route 101 bend past stone walls and dark stands of pine toward Joe English Hill. The reward arrives at first light: a driveway cut clean to the pavement, banks squared off at the mailbox, the village common still holding its hush while somebody's car backs out without a second thought. Storm after storm the route repeats, the same dooryards and lots opened before the town is fully awake, and Amherst goes about its morning as if the night had asked nothing of anyone.