“Sure enough, I nearly did forget to mention Ophelia,” he drawled. “She is well and lively, thank you, ma’am, and I know she will be downright pleased when I tell her you asked about her.”
“I am sure she will,” returned Tavia, her face still grave. “I suppose she has a place of honor in the Petterby household, and a high chair at the table?”
“Oh, Tavia, hush,” cried Dorothy in an undertone, thinking that the flyaway had gone far enough. But both Lance and Sue took the joking in good part, Sue even objecting energetically that Ma had that little hen clear spoilt to death; that it would be allowed to sit on the parlor sofa if it didn’t like best to stay in the barnyard with the other chickens.
For Ophelia, despite her high-sounding name, was merely a humble fowl which Ma Petterby had brought up from a motherless chick and had carried with her from New York to Colorado in a basket made particularly for the purpose when she had come seeking her “baby,” Lance Petterby.
“Ma would be plumb tickled out of her wits to see you,” said Lance as the little car bounced into the last stretch of road that separated them from the Hardin ranch. “Couldn’t we go on a little ways further now we’re about it and give the little old lady the surprise of her life?”
Although Susan Petterby added her hospitable invitation to his, Dorothy reluctantly refused, urging as a reason that she dared not delay her search for her brother.
“Now, don’t you worry, ma’am,” Lance urged as, a few minutes later, the light car came to a sputtering standstill before the rambling old structure that had once belonged to Colonel Hardin. “You will find the lad all right,” he added diffidently, opening the car door for them. “I could take a canter over to Garry Knapp’s ranch and see if everything’s all right.”
Dorothy assented gratefully and Tavia reluctantly handed the little warm bundle that was Octavia Susan over to her mother.
“I’m crazy about her and I am going to see her often,” said Tavia to the parents of her namesake. “That is,” she added, with the bright smile that seldom failed to get her what she wanted, “if you won’t mind having me hanging around a lot.”
The answer of Lance Petterby was prompt and flattering and that of Sue was hardly less so. For the heart of a mother is very tender where her offspring are concerned and Tavia had shown a gratifying interest in Octavia Susan.