With the Harlings safely out of their difficulties Christmas, as Carl jestingly observed, was free to approach and approach it did with a speed incredible of belief. A big blizzard a week before it, which transformed the suburban districts into a wonderland of beauty, merely worked havoc however in Baileyville, causing muddy streets and slippery pavements, and wrecking the skating in the park.
"Snow doesn't seem to be made for cities," remarked Mrs. McGregor in reply to Carl's lamentations. "It is an old-fashioned institution that belongs to the past. Here in town there is neither a place for it nor does it do an atom of good to anybody unless it is the unemployed who hail the work it brings."
"I hate the snow," wailed Timmie. "It isn't snow, anyway; it's just slush."
"Ah, laddie, you should see one of the snowstorms of the old country!" protested his Scotch mother reminiscently. "Then you would not say you hated the snow. It turned everything it touched white as a Tartary lamb."
"What's a Tartary lamb, Mother?" inquired Tim with interest.
"A Tartary lamb? Ask your big brother; he goes to school."
"I never heard of a Tartary lamb, Ma," flushed Carl.
"Mary had a little lamb," began Nell, who had caught the phrase.
"So she did, darling," laughed her mother as she picked up the child and kissed her, "and its fleece was white as snow, too, for the song says so; but it wasn't a Tartary lamb, dearie. It was just a common one."
"What is a Tartary lamb, anyway, Ma?" Mary demanded.