’While the first snow was mealy under feet,
A team drawled creaking down Quompegan street. 
Two cords of oak weighed down the grinding sled,
And cornstalk fodder rustled overhead;
The oxen’s muzzles, as they shouldered through,
Were silver-fringed; the driver’s own was blue
As the coarse frock that swung below his knee. 
Behind his load for shelter waded he;
His mittened hands now on his chest he beat,
Now stamped the stiffened cowhides of his feet, 500
Hushed as a ghost’s; his armpit scarce could hold
The walnut whipstock slippery-bright with cold. 
What wonder if, the tavern as he past,
He looked and longed, and stayed his beasts at last,
Who patient stood and veiled themselves in steam
While he explored the bar-room’s ruddy gleam?

’Before the fire, in want of thought profound,
There sat a brother-townsman weather-bound: 
A sturdy churl, crisp-headed, bristly-eared,
Red as a pepper; ’twixt coarse brows and beard 510
His eyes lay ambushed, on the watch for fools,
Clear, gray, and glittering like two bay-edged pools;
A shifty creature, with a turn for fun,
Could swap a poor horse for a better one,—­
He’d a high-stepper always in his stall;
Liked far and near, and dreaded therewithal. 
To him the in-comer, “Perez, how d’ ye do?”
“Jest as I’m mind to, Obed; how do you?”
Then, his eyes twinkling such swift gleams as run
Along the levelled barrel of a gun 520
Brought to his shoulder by a man you know
Will bring his game down, he continued, “So,
I s’pose you’re haulin’ wood?  But you’re too late;
The Deacon’s off; Old Splitfoot couldn’t wait;
He made a bee-line las’ night in the storm
To where he won’t need wood to keep him warm. 
’Fore this he’s treasurer of a fund to train
Young imps as missionaries; hopes to gain
That way a contract that he has in view
For fireproof pitchforks of a pattern new, 530
It must have tickled him, all drawbacks weighed,
To think he stuck the Old One in a trade;
His soul, to start with, wasn’t worth a carrot. 
And all he’d left ’ould hardly serve to swear at.”

’By this time Obed had his wits thawed out,
And, looking at the other half in doubt,
Took off his fox-skin cap to scratch his head,
Donned it again, and drawled forth, “Mean he’s dead?”
“Jesso; he’s dead and t’other d that follers
With folks that never love a thing but dollars. 540
He pulled up stakes last evening, fair and square,
And ever since there’s been a row Down There. 
The minute the old chap arrived, you see,
Comes the Boss-devil to him, and says he,
’What are you good at?  Little enough, I fear;
We callilate to make folks useful here.’ 
‘Well,’ says old Bitters, ’I expect I can
Scale a fair load of wood with e’er a man.’ 
’Wood we don’t deal in; but perhaps you’ll