When they came out of the woods, they found that the air was very thick with the falling flakes, and the drifts had begun to be quite large, so that sometimes, in plunging through them, the snow would bank up quite high, before the sled, against the ends of the rafters.

Jonas said that, if they had been two hours later, they could not have got along.
"You said that the snow wouldn't be a foot deep by midnight," said Josey.
"It is coming faster than I thought it would," said Jonas.

"It is almost a foot deep now." The road by which the boys were advancing, led along the bank of the brook, until it reached nearly to the shore of the pond, and then it turned off, and went towards the house, at a little distance from the shore.

When they reached this part of the road, the storm, which here swept down across the pond, beat upon them with unusual fury.

The wind howled; the snow was driven through the air, and seemed to scud along the ground with great violence; and the drifts, running diagonally across the road, were once or twice so deep, that the oxen could hardly get the load through.