Th e night was bleak; intensely cold. Th e Connecticut River was a mute frozen ribbon of ice. Great drifts of swirling snow were steeped high on either side of its banks . . . Vermont was literally a glacier. Th e county of Fairlee had not seen nor felt the conciliatory rays of the benevolent sun for many days, and the small town lay grasped in a fi st of hushed white snow-witnessing a sickly glare by day and a cold blackness by night. Fairlee ceased to function. Schools, shops, offi ces and work establishments were all abandoned. Domestic pets were kept indoors at all times, and in the rural districts vigilant fi res were kept in barns and stables to prevent the perishing of livestock from the embittered hand of winter. Th e piazza-roof