Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The electric cars halted; even the great snow-ploughs roared impotent amid the snowy wastes; waggons floundered into cross-streets and stuck until dug out; and everywhere, in the thickening obscurity, battalions of emergency men with pick and shovel struggled with the drifts in Fifth Avenue and Broadway. Then the storm ended at daybreak.
For winter comes early to the Maine coasts. Long before Thanksgiving, the ground was white with snow, and it stayed white from that time on till spring. After the first heavy storm, the farmers turned out with snow-ploughs to break paths through the village.
As we steamed out of Quebec we saw the snow-ploughs conveniently shunted, ready for use at a moment's notice. The snowsheds are a permanent institution on the Intercolonial Railway. The train passes through them sometimes for the length of half a mile. They are simply wooden erections like a box, built in parts of the line where the snow is likely to drift.
The driver gave the animal a good scolding: "Shame on you, shame on you!" he said to him. The horse listened, and seemed to understand him. I think he felt ashamed. As I journeyed further north the snow got deeper and deeper every hour. Snow-ploughs were now drawn by five horses and generally attended by three men. The snowstorm still continued.
One might go on through the long range of incidental arguments such as lighted streets, well-kept sidewalks, winter snow-ploughs, and good drainage, and a wholesome pride in a tidy, cosey village, until even the most close-fisted of all our class would confess that the extra cost would bring full value in return, and until he would recognize the fact that the attractions of such a home as the village would make possible would be likely to insure his being succeeded in his wholesome trade by the brightest and best of his sons, a result that would surely be worth more than all it would cost.
Sometimes we could not tell where it was, for the land around was deeply buried and the track of the snow-ploughs was hidden by the fresh-fallen snow. When my driver made a mistake and drove one way or the other outside of the track, the first intimation we had was that of the horse sinking suddenly, being ourselves upset or nearly so. Then we had a lot of trouble putting him on the track again.
But we are now writing of the summer, after the snow has all melted, the snow-ploughs put on one side, and the roads recovered from the havoc wrought by the streams of melting snow. Then the sleighs have been hidden away in the innermost recesses of barns and outhouses, and the driving season begins.
Engla spun flax on her spinning-wheel, Serlotta carded wool, and Maria wove a thick woollen cloth to be turned into garments for three new suits for her father and two brothers, while the mother knitted woollen stockings. I remained three days on this farm. During that time the snow had packed and the snow-ploughs followed by the rollers had made their reappearance on the highroad.
The long train began to plod in a laboured, tired way, after the manner of mortals, stopping often, while snow-ploughs in advance cleared the track. Darkness came down and still the fearful mass of whiteness piled itself in huge billows about them. The snow-ploughs were unavailing; as fast as they cleared a space the wind surged down and filled it up in a trice.
Word Of The Day