“I Remember, I Remember”

Caroline Ingalls, Piece of Work; or

Did He Make That Out of Rabbit Poop?

(a recap by Will Kaiser)

Title: “I Remember, I Remember” [sic]

Airdate: January 23, 1978

Written by Arthur Heinemann

Directed by William F. Claxton

SUMMARY IN A NUTSHELL: On her wedding anniversary, Caroline recalls the days when Charles was played by Matthew Labyorteaux.

RECAP: Ugh, back to that damn Season Three theme arrangement again! Seriously, what is going on with that? Why would they switch back and forth so often? I’m dying to know if this is how the episodes actually aired in the seventies, or if the music got switched around over many years of syndication, video releases, streaming, etc. How did people not notice? If everybody was like me, there’d have been rioting in the streets.

AND the title is in quotes again. What the fuck!!!

Okay, now I’ve collected myself. I’ve been feeling kinda Larry David-ish lately – apologies. 

[UPDATE! Since this was posted, I have learned that the title is a reference to “I Remember, I Remember,” a poem by Thomas Hood that I think is fairly crappy, but that was frequently anthologized in the mid-Twentieth Century. You can judge it for yourself here – it’s short.) – WK]

We begin with Carrie, her legs shorter than ever, trundling amongst the strange driftwood logs that litter the Ingalls property. (Their origin is never explained. Do they wash up out of Plum Creek?)

We see Mary outside, hanging decorations over the doorway. Another birthday one? 

WILL: What happened to that big marijuana field that used to be behind the house?

ROMAN: It stopped being profitable after legalization.

Arthur Heinemann, D.L.F. (“Doctor’s Lady” fame), wrote this one.

And Clax is back as director.

Mary calls Ma out to look at her handiwork, and we see the occasion is not a birthday, but rather Ma and Pa’s wedding anniversary. 

Inside, there’s a tablecloth on the table (a first, I think?). 

Carrie is doing an arrangement for the centerpiece that includes lilacs, so that would put us in the spring of 1878-G. (In real life, Charles and Caroline Ingalls were married on February 1st, 1860, but as we well know by this point, anything goes in the Little House TV Universe when it comes to dates.)

But then Stupid Carrie knocks the vase over, getting filthy flower water all over the nicely set table.

WILL [as CARRIE]: “Oh, damn!”

(I am reminded of the harrowing incident where our friend’s bridal bouquet was destroyed and all her wedding reception’s drinking vessels filled with vile river water, triggering an apoplectic fit in her minutes before the ceremony. I see I related the story in some detail here, so you may look it up if you wish. It was a memorable day.)

Carrie-induced disasters aside, the anniversary party is ready to commence; but Pa is missing.

We soon find out why, as we cut to Charles using some kind of pulley apparatus to put a loose wheel back on the Chonkywagon. This is accompanied by experimental, somehow triangular-sounding David Rose music in the middle strings.

There’s also a very prominent jet trail in the sky.

Charles addresses one of the Chonkies as “David,” which is interesting. 

In “Little Girl Lost,” we learned one of the Chonkies is named “Judy.” 

Judy was mentioned again, though not seen, in “To Live With Fear,” Part One. In that episode, you’ll recall, she was recovering from some injury, leading Mary to be kicked in the gut by the replacement Chonky the temp agency sent.

At long last, we now have a name for Judy’s mate, or at any rate partner: David. (Oddly, one of the horses Charles rented for the freighting bid in “Apple Boobs” was also named David, but we’ll let that go for now.)

To me, “David and Judy” sound more like an affable, NPR-listening aunt and uncle from the 1980s than horses, but I’m sure that’s my age talking.

Anyways, Chuck doesn’t have much luck with his pulley scheme.

And back home, apparently they went ahead and had dinner without him, because now we see Laura clearing the table as Ma stands in the doorway staring into the night.

Carrie, meanwhile, enjoys an after-dinner cup of coffee.

Ma tells Laura she’s not worried about Pa, which is funny considering she’s, well, standing the doorway staring into the night. Her voice also shakes with anxiety. 

This is a classic attitude for mothers. My mom routinely stares into the night awaiting my return, and I reside permanently in another state. (Happy late Mother’s Day to you all, by the way!)

Actually, in real life I doubt Ma would be too worried. I’m sure it wouldn’t be unusual for developments to delay Charles for days, considering his line of work, the rustic setting, primitive technology, highwaymen, storms, bears, witches, etc.

As the Ing-Gals clean up, Mary asks Ma to tell some stories about her history with Pa.

DAGNY: Her shirt is really pretty.

WILL: Yeah, it’s the one she bought to test him when she thought he was sleeping with Mariette Hartley.

Yes, it’s a flashback episode! Not a clips episode (we’ll get to one of those soon enough), but one where the story proper comes from a character’s memory. (I suppose you could consider this whole “if-I-had-a-remembrance-book” series a flashback of sorts, but you know what I mean.)

Karen Grassle seeming uncomfortable working with food as usual, Ma transfers several pieces of fried chicken from a bowl back into the frying pan, to keep them warm, I suppose.

The bowl contains a large mixing spoon, a strange utensil for serving fried chicken.

Ma begins then, saying, “When I was no older than you, Laura [Editor’s note: Laura is probably between age 13 and 43 in this story. – WK] . . .  we were living on the farm, on the banks of the Oconomowoc River.”

As a Wisconsin native, I laughed out loud at Grassle’s pronunciation of Oconomowoc, but I don’t give her any blame. She clearly had no help from anyone, and “OAK-o-NO MO-hawk” is as reasonable a guess as any. 

But in fact, in Wisconsin, we would say “oh-KAHN-o-mo-WALK” or “oh-KAHN-mo-WALK.” The name is a corruption of the Potawatomi word for waterfall. I have no idea how true this is to the Potawatomi pronunciation.

When Olive’s mom was pregnant with her, Amelia was a toddler and decided the new baby would be named “Waterfall.” Their mom and I both liked the name and seriously considered it as a possibility. Perhaps we should have met in the middle and gone with Oconomowoc instead!

Anyways, Wisconsin is somewhat famous for its Indigenous place names, and back in 2011, when the Packers played in the Super Bowl, somebody made a video of Texas locals trying to pronounce a bunch of them. I don’t blame them for their wrong guesses either.

But Dags does.

DAGNY: That’s so ridiculous. Why wouldn’t they pick up the phone and call Oconononomowoc to find out how it was pronounced?

WILL: Oconomowoc.

DAGNY: Whatever. Literally anybody in town could have told them!

Anyways, the Oconomowoc River is quite real, flowing out of Lac La Belle about 35 miles west of Milwaukee, and 400 miles southeast of Walnut Grove.

It flows near a little community called Concord, Wisconsin. Caroline was actually born in (what’s today) the Milwaukee suburb Brookfield in 1839, but her family, the Quiners, moved to Concord when she was a child. We can assume that’s where this one’s set.

Ma says, “One day, a wagon came up the road, and somebody hailed us,” and with that, we fade into the past, where we see the wagon drive up to a house surrounded by blond children.

WILL: That seems a different style house than we usually see on this show.

DAGNY: Mh-hm.

The tallest child, a girl in pigtails, approaches the wagon, and the driver, a middle-aged man, says, “How do, young lady?”

There’s another jet trail in this scene too.

The driver is accompanied by his wife, and a bunch of other characters suddenly appear: a blonde woman from the house, and two dark-haired teenagers, a boy and a girl, from the back of the wagon.

The man introduces himself and his wife as Lansford and Laura Ingalls, saying they’re new to town.

Now, everyone reading this will recall Lansford and Laura, Charles’s insane parents from “Journey in the Spring.” 

However, this time they’re played by different actors. This Lansford really doesn’t look the same as the old one. (Neither is he trying to burn himself alive, at least so far.)

He is familiar-looking, though, since he’s played by Nicolas Coster. Coster might be best known for soap operas – he was a regular on Another World in the seventies and Santa Barbara in the eighties, and he appeared on As the World Turns, One Life to Life, and All My Children, too.

He played Blair’s dad on The Facts of Life, and also had a regular role on Sheriff Lobo.

He was in some notable movies, including All the President’s Men, Reds, and The Concorde – Airport ’79, which you’ll recall also featured another Little House guest star, the Raven S-50A N401AA hot-air balloon from “‘Meet Me at the Fair.’” 

(I’m tempted to watch Airport ’79, but having just sat through two really terrible seventies disaster films, The Swarm and Meteor, it might be some time before I’m ready.)

Coster also appeared in Big Business, in which he played the father of Bette Midler or Lily Tomlin or Bette Midler or Lily Tomlin, I can’t remember which. (Highly recommended for all Walnut Groovy readers.)

On television, Coster was on Dallas, Simon & Simon, Law & Order, and 3rd Rock From the Sun. He died last year, but kept working right up to the end, with more recent notable projects including The Young Pope and Impeachment: American Crime Story.

And this time Laura Colby Ingalls is played by Sarah Miller (not to be confused with Sarah Miller the character, the creepy blonde girl who appeared in last week’s story). 

This Sarah Miller is perfectly pleasant-looking, but she resembles the cougar-ish Laura Colby “Dancing Grandma” Ingalls from “Journey” not at all. 

Miller has a pretty short C.V., of which Eight is Enough is perhaps a highlight.

Lansford tells the blonde woman they’re moving into “the Old Barton Place.” 

Blondie, a pretty woman with a rather toothy smile, introduces herself as Mrs. Holbrook.

(Caroline’s father, Henry Newton Quiner, was a sailor who died in an 1845 shipwreck on Lake Michigan – not so very far from where I grew up, actually; as the gull flies, at least.) 

(Her mother, Charlotte, remarried four years later to a farmer named Frederick Holbrook.)

Mrs. Holbrook then introduces her three blond children – Henry, who looks like a less feral version of Willie Oleson; Eliza Ann, a Smallest-Nondescript-Helen-of-Them-All type; and Caroline.

Unsurprisingly, the tall girl, who looks to be about thirteen, is Caroline, though in real life her brother Henry Odin Quiner was four years older. (Maybe he was just short?)

And the real Eliza Ann was just three years younger than Caroline, though the age gap here looks a little greater. You’ll recall Eliza Ann also featured in “Journey in the Spring,” in which she was played by Hersha Parady, herself three years younger than Karen Grassle.

Here she’s played by Kristi Jill Wood, who was on a couple ABC Afterschool Specials.

Henry Quiner the Elder and Charlotte had two additional sons, Joseph and Thomas; we’ll see if they make an appearance too. 

The show credits all these characters as Holbrooks, but most of the sources I looked at refer to the kids as using the name Quiner even into adulthood. (Not the married women, obviously.)

There would be one blood Holbrook child born, though: Charlotte “Lotty” Holbrook, who would be born in 1854.

Lansford introduces his own dark-haired kids, Polly and Peter. Polly was mentioned in “Journey” but not seen; and Peter was played as a dour middle-aged man by Mark Lenard of Sarek-the-Vulcan fame.

Then he pulls his younger son out of the wagon, introducing him as Charles.

If Caroline is thirteen here, that would make it 1852, by which point the real Lansford and Laura Ingalls would have had five additional children: Lydia (also mentioned in “Journey”), James Lansford, Laura Ladocia (Ladocia, nice), Hiram, and George. 

(It would also make Charles about seventeen, but we’ll get to that in a moment.)

Lansford and Laura would go on to have two more after 1852: Ruby and Lafayette. (Randy Landy!)

In real life, also, Polly Ingalls was five years younger than Charles, but we see now she looks significantly older. (She’s played by Robin Muir, who apparently played one of the many Irish kids in Season One’s “If I Should Wake Before I Die.”)

Anyways, the only consistent casting between the two episodes is that of Young Charles, who again is played by that little acting scamp-of-all-trades, Matthew Labyorteaux.

Charles barely speaks in this scene.

ALEXANDER: Is Charles the Carrie of this story?

Young Caroline, of course, is played by Katy Kurtzman.

WILL: Obviously, “Young Charles” is Albert, but who is Young Caroline? She was also in another episode.

ROMAN: It’s Nellie, oh my God, of course!

ROMAN: No, I know. It’s the girl from “The Music Box.”

WILL: Ah, very good.

WILL: They should have had her stutter over Peter Ingalls’s name, start crying, and then give a little wink to the camera. You know, for the superfans.

Speaking of superfans, I know a lot of you wonder why Young Charles is the spitting image of Albert, Laura’s non-blood-related adopted sibling whom we’ll meet quite soon. But if you read our recap for “Journey,” you’ll remember we solved that problem with the theory that Lansford sowed some “wild oats” before going bonkers, meaning the reason Charles and Albert look so much alike is they’re actually half-brothers.

It makes sense: Lansford probably impregnated some saloon girl in Wisconsin, who then abandoned her baby in Winoka as she traveled to seek a more lucrative career (in Deadwood, most likely).

Now, Caroline’s resemblance to Anna is maybe harder to deduce. But isn’t it possible that Anna was a Quiner babe (an illegitimate daughter of Henry Odin’s? or one Eliza Ann had secretly in a privy?), and that the Swedish (illegal???) immigrant Gillbergs adopted (or stole!) her as they traveled through Wisconsin towards Minnesota?

While these are obviously credible theories, the historical record is silent on the matter. What we do know is, in real life, Lansford Ingalls and his family moved to Wisconsin in 1853, when Charles was seventeen and Caroline was thirteen. But when this was filmed, Katy Kurtzman would have been twelve, and Matthew Labyorteaux was eleven. (And he looks even younger, I think.)

Anyways, Charlotte Quiner Holbrook, presented here as an amiable Dolly Parton type, says, “Won’t you come inside and have somethin’ refreshin’?”

DAGNY: Is that Michael Landon’s wife?

WILL: No, but it kind of looks like her.

Charlotte is actually a Virginia Kiser (no relation), who was in Mommie Dearest, Poltergeist, and Micki + Maude, and who had recurring roles on Days of Our Lives, Dallas, and Max Headroom (the last of which I loved).

The families amble off, leaving Caroline to look at Charles appraisingly.

Charles responds by making a Willie-style goofy face and running off.

If you enjoy obsessing over the music on this show, as I do, you were no doubt thrilled to recognize the music accompanying this historic meeting as “Mary the Nerd,” Mary’s “brainiac” theme, which in the past was usually performed on a spiny-sounding harpsichord. We haven’t heard it since “For My Lady” in Season Two.

Then we cut to Lansford and his family building a log house in the woods. If you think they’re the “the Big Woods” of Wisconsin where the Ingallses lived before heading down to Kansas in The Pilot (and after), you’re wrong. Those are on the opposite side of the state, and Charles and Caroline wouldn’t move there for another ten years.

The construction is interrupted by the arrival of the Quiner-Holbrooks, who’ve brought some baked goods as a present.

ROMAN [as CHARLOTTE QUINER HOLBROOK]: “I made you a fresh bread.”

They’ve also brought a huge jug of maple syrup (a nice gift), and Caroline passes around some maple candy as well.

Peter and Polly take some candy. As in the previous scene, Peter has his arm wrapped around his sister in a weird way, but, you know. Country livin’.

But Charles refuses the candy, so Peter takes him aside and chews him out.

If in “Journey in the Spring,” Peter Riley Ingalls was cold and sour, in this story he’s a junior sex maniac, telling his brother it’s clear Caroline is so into him, dude.

Peter makes Charles apologize to Caroline and tell her he’s a dummy, which he does, blandly.

“You just graduated from dummy to jackass,” says Peter. (Excellent line, Heinemann.)

Soon everyone’s saying goodbye. “Nice to have met you!” says Lansford.

ROMAN: “Nice to have met you”? Didn’t he meet them already?

WILL: He’s just saying goodbye, since he’s planning to self-immolate soon on account of his severe depression.

Still channeling Dolly, Charlotte starts playing matchmaker between Caroline and Charles.

Back in 1878-G, Ma tells the girls it’s time for bed.

They’re disappointed, probably because truth be told, the story was kind of a dud.

And out in the wilderness, Old Charles still hasn’t fixed the fucking wagon wheel. It’s now night, and Castle Thunder roars on the soundtrack.

WILL: Wow – just like yesterday.

ROMAN: What do you mean, because it rained?

WILL: Yeah. I was waiting for people at a coffee shop and I almost got sprinkled on. I felt like I really understood what life was like for the pioneers.

WILL [as JOHN COUGAR MELLENCAMP]: “Rain on the scarecrow, blood on the plow! . . .”

After a commercial, Ma goes outside, and Laura and Mary follow her.

They observe a storm is approaching, suggesting Charles is traveling west of Walnut Grove today.

Ma lets the elder Ing-Gals stay up late and continues her tale. They ask if Pa was her first “beau.”

“I suppose he was,” she says.

DAGNY [as MA]: “Until that handyman came along. . . .”

She then starts talking about this other boy, Harold Watson, and his father, who she says were both assholes. Mr. Watson was apparently the local schoolmaster, and as we fade back into the flashback, we see he was also none other than Boss Hogg!

I don’t think The Dukes of Hazzard would stand up very well, but I loved it as a kid. We used to watch it at my grandparents’ house, and the villains, the fat comical corrupt mayor and his dopey sheriff, were my favorites.

Boss Hogg was played by Sorrell Booke, who was in Freaky Friday and appeared on Dr. Kildare, M*A*S*H, Columbo, All in the Family, Good Times, What’s Happening!!, Kung Fu, and many others. (Even Love Boat.)

Despite his association with, ahem, rather junky TV shows, Booke was a classically trained actor and an Ivy League graduate who was fluent in at least twelve languages.

WILL: Do you recognize him?

DAGNY: Sure. [doing an old-man voice:] “Have you come to buy the ponies?”

WILL: . . . What?

DAGNY [old-man voice]: “I will not sell you the ponies!”

WILL: I don’t know what you’re talking about.

DAGNY: Sure you do. He’s the guy she argues with in True Grit.

Dagny is referring to Dakin Matthews as Colonel Stonehill in that film. But no, he and Sorrell Booke are not the same person.

WILL: No, he’s somebody who was on a TV show at the same time as Little House.

DAGNY: Is it George Costanza?

She’s getting her eras mixed up a little bit.

DAGNY: Is it Divine?

That’s probably the best guess of all.

Anyways, his Mr. Watson is obviously an educator in the Hannibal Applewood mold. He’s slightly fussier, perhaps, and also has a unique gimmick: screaming the last word of every sentence three times whilst striking his desk with a stick.

He makes Charles stand up and repeat his name four times, each time screaming that his diction is incomprehensible, even though it’s actually just fine.

WILL [as MR. WATSON]: “AND PUT ON A PROPER DRESS!”

Just like Mr. Applewood with Laura, Mr. Watson also punishes Charles for nothing. Only this time, the punishment is a beating, and this time – fairly unusually for this show – the audience gets to experience it live, even if it’s off-camera.

Caroline winces as she hears the blows fall. Then Harold Watson, a short flop-haired kid reminiscent of some of Walnut Grove’s nastier redhaired students, approaches her to brag about the great lunch he’s brought. (What’s with Landon’s hatred for gingers?)

Discerning Caroline’s sympathies are with Charles, Harold torments him when he emerges from the schoolhouse. Charles responds by attacking him.

DAGNY: You can tell Albert’s never been in a real fight.

But despite Caroline’s efforts to intervene, it only brings him another beating, this time in front of everybody.

(Katy Kurtzman gives us good crying-face again in this one.)

After school, Peter and Charles are walking home, when they see Harold violently harassing Caroline. Peter does nothing, but Charles rushes in again to attack.

“My pa has you pegged right – you’re a troublemaker,” says Harold.

“Your pa’s fulla applesauce,” says Charles.

WILL: My God, what a shocking retort.

DAGNY: Yeah, that’s a Laura response if I ever heard one.

“Now, are you gonna get outta here, or do I come rammin’ and thumpin’?” Charles says, Matthew Labyorteaux bending over and twirling his fists in a sort of bizarre eggbeater style. 

It’s good they put this in the mouth of a kid. It’d sound funny from anybody else.

Questioning this new kid’s sanity just as you or I would, Harold Watson runs off.

Caroline then tries to make conversation with Charles, but he races away in embarrassment.

“Oh, that boy!” Caroline says in annoyance – Katy Kurtzman doing a nice Karen Grassle impression.

Peter makes fun of Charles and Caroline “making cow eyes” at each other.

WILL: Doesn’t Peter seem more her age?

ALEXANDER: Peter’s probably gay.

This makes Charles come rammin’ and thumpin’, but Peter doesn’t seem to care much.

Later, Caroline comes by the Old Barton Place. She hears fiddle music – playing “Mary the Nerd,” of all things!

Caroline peeps in the window to see who’s playing, but she’s captured by Peter, who brings her inside saying, “Anybody got a gun? This is an enemy spy!” I like Young Peter better than Middle-Aged Peter, no question.

Young Peter is played by David L. Considine, an actor whose only other credit is playing a medieval minstrel in a bizarre time-travel episode of MacGyver. 

Inside the cabin are Mrs. Ingalls, Charles, Polly (who’s operating a spinning wheel – another first?), and (oddly) Caroline’s brother Henry.

(Henry is played by Gregg Forrest, who was a regular on the Bad News Bears TV show.)

Laura Colby gives her a doughnut and then Charles walks her home, David Rose again taking up “Mary the Nerd” in the orchestra. (Rather nice variations on it, too.)

Caroline asks if Charles is going to “the berry festival on Saturday.” (Strawberries are in season beginning in mid-June in Wisconsin, so it’s funny the kids are still in school. But – Little House.)

Caroline goes on to explain a very strange custom where the community’s girls make all the lunches for the festival, but put special symbols on them so their boyfriends will know which are the extra-good ones to take. (Sounds like Willow Prairie witchcraft to me!)

She says she’ll make a lunch for Charles and tie it with a yellow ribbon.

Then we cut to Mr. Watson and Charles alone in the schoolhouse. Watson is hitting him and screaming “deportment, deportment, deportment!”

DAGNY: Why is he beating him so much? He’s not his parent.

WILL: He likes it. He’s probably a pedophile.

ROMAN: Charles’s backside is probably so calloused he can’t feel a thing anymore.

ALEXANDER: Yeah. Like a turtle’s shell.

All the other kids are loitering outside, and Charles runs away, with moody, Adagio for Strings–ish music on the soundtrack.

Later, Watson goes out to the school privy.

DAGNY: That’s a cool shot. Look at that spiderweb.

WILL: But did Landon direct it?

DAGNY: I think not, no.

She’s right, of course.

Watson removes his jacket, so yuck, Number Two.

Once he’s closed the door, Charles appears from behind the outhouse and wraps a rope around it so Watson can’t get out.

Watson looks through the moon-shaped window in the door and screams, “Charles Ingalls! You’ll suffer for this!”

DAGNY: He kind of reminds me of Patton Oswalt.

Interestingly, Atlas Obscura argues the “traditional” crescent moon on the privy door is probably an artistic creation dating to the 1960s.

Out in the (not Big) woods, the Ingalls family is loading up the wagon to go someplace, when Mr. Watson arrives in a buggy.

Watson has a word with Lansford, who hands him his own belt to beat Charles.

But he stops him after four lashes, and tells him if he ever hears that Watson has unfairly punished Charles again, Lansford will come to school and kick the shit out of him in front of the entire class. (Out of Mr. Watson, that is – not Charles.)

WILL: It must be nice to be strong and menacing enough to get your way because people are afraid you’ll kick their ass. I wouldn’t know. It would have helped a great deal at the State Fair that day, I can tell you!

Watson leaves in a huff, and Lansford tells Charles to knock off the monkeyshines. He further punishes him by making him stay home from the berry festival.

Back in the 1870s, it’s now raining, and Old Caroline breaks off the story and tells Laura and Mary to go to bed.

DAGNY: Everyone is talking in whispering voices in this one. I can’t take it.

Meanwhile, out in the storm, Charles continues trying to fix the wheel.

After another break, Laura climbs into bed with Ma to hear the rest of the tale. They’re kind of dragging this one out, but I get it, they don’t want Grassle just sitting in the same armchair the whole episode telling the story.

DAGNY: Miss Peel should appear in the window. “I can see you, Mary Ingalls!”

Back at school, Young Caroline is pissed at Charles for missing the festival, which was supposed to be their first date of sorts. She says she gave his lunch to Harold Watson out of spite.

But then she immediately confesses she only said that to make Charles jealous. She says she “can’t stand to watch [Harold] chew” – which is another good line.

Out of nowhere, Charles then gives Caroline a present – a string of beads made from what Charles calls “Job’s tears” – a real plant used for beadmaking since antiquity.

DAGNY: Did he make that out of rabbit poop?

Clearly delighted, Caroline asks him to help her put the necklace on, though equally clearly she needs no help whatsoever. 

DAGNY: Oh, come on. “Help me put on my beads”?

WILL: Like Sprague said – women’s wiles.

Charles says the beads look “real pretty on you,” and she takes his hand.

WILL: Don’t you think this is a strange romance? He’s so much littler than she is.

DAGNY: Nah, it’s fine. After all, Michael Landon is short too.

DAGNY: Do you picture your parents when you look at them?

WILL: What? No!

DAGNY: But that’s the age when they got together.

WILL: The 1870s?

No, Dags of course means my mom and dad were about thirteen when they started dating. It’s true.

No matter – it’s a nice moment, though not as nice perhaps as the wild fantastical hallucinations of “Apple Boobs.” (Then again, not every Little House story is an “Apple Boobs.”)

Then we see the two kids walking the countryside, discussing how they rarely exchange gifts with the opposite sex, and then it’s usually frogs.

Then Caroline asks Charles to “the haying dance.” I’m sorry, have we leapt forward in time five or six months? Haying seems like a fall activity, the leaves suddenly look dead. They’re dressed AWFULLY heavily for June, too.

But I suppose my assumption that it’s June is based on the strawberry season. Raspberries can be picked in the fall, so I guess maybe that’s the berry celebrated in the festival.

Even so, there are a LOT of dead leaves on the ground for it to be raspberry season.

And THEN Charles runs off through a field of long grass covered with hoar frost! What the dickens? It’s like all the seasons of the year in a single scene.

Then we get a very weird sequence where Peter teaches Charles how to dance near the horsepen.

WILL: This is what it would be like if Alexander taught Roman how to dance.

And then we cut to the barn dance itself, which looks well-attended. Setting aside the time of year, it still seems strange they’d be having the Berry Festival and the Haying Dance on subsequent weekends. You’d think they’d spread major community events like that apart.

Strangely, the party is decorated with Chinese lanterns!

David gives us a waltz – it’s a little “1970s country”-sounding, though. (You keep thinking a slide guitar’s gonna come in.)

DAGNY: Is that Mr. Hanson walking by?

Caroline’s waiting for Charles, but when the Ingallses arrive, he’s missing. Laura Colby tells her he’s just fussing about his hair, though.

Then Harold Watson approaches Caroline and demands a dance.

When she says she’s waiting for Charles, Harold smirks at this weird blond goon who’s accompanying him and says Charles isn’t coming.

Harold is played by Adam Gunn, perhaps best known for playing the young Michael Myers in Halloween II!

WILL [as HAROLD WATSON, suavely]: “Hey, Caroline, there’s a lot of cool things about me you don’t know. I killed my older sister, for one.”

Strangely, Caroline takes Harold’s report as a rejection and begs her mother to leave the dance.

Caroline runs home, weeps, and breaks Charles’s beads and throws them across the room.

DAGNY: Wow – I wasn’t sure about her performance until now, but that was really good.

Back at the barn dance, Charles shows up all black and blue in the face, telling Peter “Harold and Ike jumped on me.”

Peter, obviously the Al Swearengen of Concord, Wis., asks, “Did you give them as good as you got?”

Charles leaves, and then Peter implies to Harold and Ike (the blond goon) that he’ll show them some pornography in the back room. Presumably he intends to beat them up instead, but we never find out. (Young Peter has been presented as kind of a horndog.)

At Caroline’s house, she at first won’t let Charles in, mostly because he doesn’t explain what’s happened.

DAGNY: I don’t understand, why doesn’t he say, “They beat me up”?

He pleads and pleads, but still doesn’t explain.

ROMAN: Just tell her!

ALEXANDER: Yeah. “I’m sorry, but they beat me up.”

Caroline says she never wants to see him again.

WILL: OH MY GOD JUST SAY IT!!!

But then she opens the door and sees his broken face.

DAGNY [as YOUNG CAROLINE]: “Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh CHARLES!!!”

With everything now understood, Caroline suggests they have their own dance on the front porch. Which is nice.

Back in 1878, it’s still raining.

WILL [as MISS PEEL]: “I’ll rip your soul clean, Jezebel!”

Laura asks what Pa said about the broken beads. So she did break them?

Ma says she restrung them, and that she still has them! And sure enough, she hauls ’em out, saying as long as she has them, she’ll never “make a hasty judgment about Charles” again.

DAGNY: She’s got Playboy hair again. Send that screengrab to John Pima for his collection.

Rather improbably, Laura falls asleep at this exact moment.

Then the rain stops, and Charles gets home. 

He says he’s brought a present for her – a container of some seasoning the Mercantile doesn’t stock. (Tarragon?)

She accepts this is a typical unromantic Man Present, thinking he’s forgetten their anniversary – but then Charles pulls a new necklace from his pocket.

WILL: Those can’t be pearls. He’d never afford them.

DAGNY: Nah, it’s rabbit poop again, but this time he painted it white.

Then Ma says, “Charles Ingalls, on this very special day, may I have the pleasure of this dance?”

DAGNY: She is a piece of work.

WILL: Caroline, or Grassle?

DAGNY: Both.

Pa thinks she’s crazy, but agrees, and they both remember their first dance all those years ago.

DAGNY: He doesn’t care about this shit, he wants to get straight to popcorn.

WILL: I know, he’s in for a shock when he sees Laura’s in their bed.

Bum-Bum-Ba-Dum!

THE VERDICT: With its insights into one of the show’s key relationships, it’s understandable why this charming episode is so fondly remembered, even if it doesn’t have much of a story. The performances are good also. Curiously, Charles’s brother Peter makes more of an impression than Lansford; but Katy Kurtzman gets a perfect score for capturing Young Caroline.

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