noon
The road lay untouched until ten o'clock , when a selectman gave notice that it was an occasion for `` breakin ' out , '' by starting with his team , and gathering oxen by the way until a conquering procession ground through the drifts , the men shoveling at intervals where the snow lay deepest , the oxen walking swayingly , head to the earth , and the faint wreath of their breath ascending and cooling on the air . It was `` high times '' in Tiverton Hollow when a road needed opening ; some idea of the old primitive way of battling with the untouched forces of nature roused the people to an exhilaration dashed by no uncertainty of victory . By afternoon , the excitement had quieted . The men had come in , reddened by cold , and eaten their noon dinner in high spirits , retailing to the less fortunate women-folk the stories swapped on the march . Then , as one man , they succumbed to the drowsiness induced by a morning of wind in the face , and sat by the stove under some pretense of reading the county paper , but really to nod and doze , waking only to put another stick of wood on the fire . So passed all the day before Christmas , and in the evening the shining lamps were lighted -LRB- each with a strip of red flannel in the oil , to give color -RRB- , and the neighborhood rested in the tranquil certainty that something had really come to pass , and that their communication with the world was reëstablished . Susan Peavey sat by the fire , knitting on a red mitten , and the young schoolmaster presided over the other hearth corner , reading very hard , at intervals , and again sinking into a drowsy study of the flames .