“As Long as We’re Together,” Part Two

I’m a Farmer, Not a Fighter; or

My Birds Seem More Dainty

(a recap by Will Kaiser)

Title: “As Long as We’re Together” [sic], Part Two

Airdate: September 18, 1978

Written and directed by Michael Landon

SUMMARY IN A NUTSHELL: The Grovester moms start a school. Ma and Pa enjoy Alone Time. Albert commits petty theft and gets tackled by Laura. Mrs. O suggests Nels commit suicide, then takes a job as a saloon girl. Charles makes some foolish decisions, and Mary and Adam make out. Jonathan Garvey kicks ass, figuratively and literally. Mary gets a surprise birthday party, but it’s Pa who receives the best present.

RECAP: Hi! First things first: We just got back from WALNUT GROVE ITSELF!

Yes, we went to the 50th anniversary cast reunion and annual Laura Ingalls Wilder Pageant on the weekend of July 19th. It was a lovely time; there was a fun panel discussion with Dean Butler, Alison Arngrim, Charlotte Stewart, Patrick Labyorteaux, Robyn Sidney Greenbush, Pamela Roylance, Jason Friedman, Leslie Landon, Wendi Lou Lee (Turnbaugh), Jennifer Donati, and Michael Landon, Jr.

And the pageant itself was a really amazing presentation – it truly felt like every single person in town had a part, and you could see why they’re so proud of it.

As for us, the whole Kaiser family sixsome was there, along with our good friends (and hardcore Little House people) Daisy, Raja, and Ruth.

As a wonderful surprise, Ruth even made us some Walnut Groovy t-shirts!

The shirts raised a few eyebrows from the stuffier attendees, ahem, but we were also stopped for photos about a jillion times. And we brought one for Arngrim herself, which she loved.

But onwards! We begin this week with a lengthy previously-on, but since you all remember the setup for this one I won’t bog things down by picking it apart.

The curtain rises on the Winoka thoroughfare, which looks busier than ever.

DAGNY: When I was a kid I hated these Winoka stories. I was so frightened for their safety.

The Alamo Tourist from Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure and Herbert Diamond are amongst the crowd, as are Caroline and Laura and Alice and Andrew Garvey.

If you’re wondering where Carrie and the baby are – I have no idea!

At the blind school, we join Mary, who’s begun her teaching duties. 

Her subject is apparently the paintings of Leonardo da Vinci – an odd choice for BLIND STUDENTS, one might think.

WILL: This is what they’re studying? The visual arts? 

DAGNY: Yeah. Adam’s method is to make them do everything sighted people do, even if it makes zero sense.

Specifically, Mary’s discussing the composition of The Last Supper.

But rather than the aesthetics, her focus is on the Biblical elements. She asks the kids to name the disciples of Jesus who were in attendance.

The faintly-familiar-looking blonde girl from last week says Peter and John. “Right, Sue!” Mary says.

(Sue is Sue Goodspeed, and she looks faintly familiar because she’s played by Michelle Downey, whom we met previously as the bedraggled and depressed Sarah Miller in “Whisper Country.”)

Saint Peter (deadname Simon), known as the keeper of Heaven’s pearly gates, is depicted in the Bible as a loyal member of Jesus’ inner circle, if perhaps not the brightest of them. 

A fisherman who witnessed and/or participated in several of Jesus’ miracles (he himself briefly walked on water before totally freaking out), Peter cracked under pressure in the tense days leading up to the crucifixion.

He annoyed Jesus by panicking and cutting off the ear of an underling of the High Priest of the Sanhedrin in the Garden of Gethsemane. (Jesus just put the ear back on again, though.)

He lied several times to guards who asked him if he knew Jesus, even though Jesus had warned him in advance about doing just that. (This seems understandable enough to me, and indeed, Jesus ultimately said it was no big deal.)

Peter emerged as the de facto leader of Jesus’ old gang after the crucifixion, though it’s suggested he was easily manipulated by the better-educated Saint Paul, a Machiavel who joined the group a little later.

Peter was the first Christian bishop of Rome and is regarded by Catholics as the first Pope, but he was arrested and executed by the Emperor Nero – the one who supposedly “fiddled” whilst Rome burned. (Even though bowed string instruments probably didn’t develop for another three hundred years or so.)

Nero wanted to blame the fire on the growing Christian cult, even though they didn’t really have anything to do with it.

Tradition has it Peter asked to be crucified upside-down, to show he was inferior to Jesus. Probably still felt guilty about the Garden of Gethsemane stuff.

Anyways, we will actually meet the man himself in a future episode (this show!), but we’ll get to that when we get to it.

As for Saint John the Apostle, he was basically Jesus’ BFF, and people have suggested they were actually first cousins. 

John was supposedly the writer behind the Gospel of John, though modern historians doubt he really was its true author. 

He also was long thought to be the author of the trippy Book of Revelation, but these days most people think that was written by a different John altogether.

Some people criticize John for putting too much of the blame for Jesus’ death on the Jews, thereby kicking off thousands of years of antisemitism amongst Christians that I don’t have to tell you continues today. (Not amongst all of them, of course.)

John did come up with some of the most quotable catchphrases in the Bible, though, notably “Jesus wept,” which is one of my favorites.

He supposedly survived being immersed in boiling oil. But in the end, he was the only one of the original disciples to die a peaceful death. (After the boiling oil, I’d say he’d earned that.)

Anyways, the blond freckle-faced moppet from last week then shouts out Thomas. Obviously the class wag, he quips, “I know that because my name’s Thomas!”, which gets a big laugh.

Saint Thomas the Apostle is another famous disciple of Jesus, the “doubting Thomas” who supposedly was the most skeptical about his friend’s claims to be a god and to have risen from the dead. Such skepticism seems logical to me, but is depicted as a negative thing in the story.

Thomas eventually came around, traveling as far as India to proselytize. (This claim is hotly disputed by some Indian scholars, however.)

There are some weird stories about him. Some people say he watched the ascension of the Virgin Mary into Heaven, and that she actually dropped her underwear down to him when she got there. I don’t know what to make of that one.

He also apparently passed himself off as an architect to some bigwig in India, landing a fat contract to build a temple but instead giving the money to the poor. I’d say he was lucky they didn’t feed him to a tiger at the end of that adventure. 

But one day his luck ran out. Apparently he pissed off a king by converting the royal family to Christianity, and was murdered by soldiers on top of a hill.

Well, that’s the end of the Sunday school lesson for today. Actually, as we discussed in an earlier recap, teaching the Bible was not really the norm in American public schools by the 1870s and 1880s; but remember, we’re in Dakota Territory now, a true “Wild West” with no oversight from the federal government, and I think it’s fair to say Adam and Mary could teach whatever the hell they wanted there.

Anyways, Ma and Alice and Laura and Andrew are lurking in the doorway watching their hometown girl at work.

Mr. Ames, the headmaster who contributed so little to last week’s chapter, comes down the stairs, and Ma says they’ve come to get a recommendation for a school to put their non-blind kids into.

Ames says unfortunately there’s no public school in Winoka, just a fancy one for wealthy children. (And that’s it for his contribution THIS week.)

Disappointed by the news, Ma slips around the corner and whispers to Adam that “Monday is Mary’s birthday.”

Here we go again. Now, we have never had a story set on Mary’s birthday, but if we assume we’re picking up right where we left off last week, that puts us in September of 1882 in the G timeline. 

In real life, Mary Ingalls’s birthday was on January 10th, and she shared it with Charles. (Dags and her mom were also born on the same day as each other.)

On the show, however, Mary’s birthday has never been mentioned, unlike Pa’s, so I think we can assume their birthdays are completely separate in the Little House Universe. 

Well, we shall proceed on the hypothesis that TV’s Mary Ingalls’s birthday is in September until such time as we can’t.

Ma says she’s planning a surprise party – “after seven, [since] it takes me that long to finish the supper sitting.” Seven seems pretty early for dinner service to end in a big city like Winoka if you ask me.

Adam agrees to help with the charade.

Out in the busy street, Herbert Diamond and some other people pass by as Ma and Alice discuss homeschooling the kids. 

Ma suggests they open their own school, since they’re “both teachers.” It seems funny she should characterize herself that way, as it’s been a very long time since she taught. (Just recently, she referred to teaching as “a dream I made myself forget,” and way back in “‘I’ll Ride the Wind’” she went into a depressed trance and muttered “can’t remember” at the mere mention of teaching.)

As for Alice Garvey, we’ve had no suggestion to this point she has any teaching experience. You’d think that might have come up when she was considering career options back in “The High Cost of Being Right.”

[UPDATE: I had forgotten, Caroline does briefly teach school in Newton, Dakota Territory. Her tenure there of course comes to an end when the Ingallses decide they can’t take all the murders and graverobbing, though.]

Anyways, Alice, who we know is smart cookie, points out Caroline already has a demanding full-time job. (Not to mention a baby to take care of!)

DAGNY: There are a lot of extras in this story.

It’s true, and for the most part they’re different than our usual cast of goofy Grovesters. Apart from Herbert Diamond, the only one I recognize in this scene is the Black guy who we saw crossing the street last week.

Later, inside the Dakota restaurant, business is hoppin’ as Miles Standish and Harlan the Bouncer arrive for lunch. 

Standish must be pleased to see it so busy, given how empty it was during the Schiller administration.

Caroline comes to take their order, and Harlan immediately emits a rank puddle of innuendo.

The actor, Cletus Young (yes, Cletus), really makes this character loathsome . . . and I mean that as a compliment!

Charles comes forward to rescue her again, but Standish says, “The lady will take the order, Ingalls. That’s her job.” Then he’s like, go wash the windows or something, Chuck.

Stung by this high-handedness, Charles stares at the disagreeable twosome, but Caroline whispers “Charles, please” and he withdraws.

We don’t get any more of that conversation, cutting instead to Caroline and Charles sitting alone in the restaurant. 

Pa is a-brooding and Ma is a-fretting. They briefly discuss the difficulty Jonathan Garvey is having finding a job.

But of course Caroline knows Winoka itself is what Charles is really upset about, and indeed, soon he’s ranting and spilling his coffee and slamming windows and yelling about the goldarn ragtime.

(Ragtime and its immediate descendants, jazz and the blues, were characterized by mainstream media of the time as “the Devil’s music” – mainly because they came from Black culture.)

Ma sensibly points out that the music must be even louder in the Olesons’ room over the saloon. So Nels must have gotten the bookkeeper job at Standish’s joint? (Hopefully Harriet will help him with his figures if so.)

Trying to change the subject, Caroline says the local livery stable owner has donated a room for the school. 

“That’s really great news, my children will go to school in a stable,” Charles says with bitter sarcasm. When I was a kid, I always found it upsetting when Pa would use irony. That’s why I never use it myself to this day.

Reaching the end of her patience, Ma sets her cup down loudly on its saucer.

She says, “Charles Ingalls, look at me. People who take advantage of others just demean themselves. They deserve our pity, not our anger.” 

Talking to him as if she’s his own mother, she again says, “Look at me” – and he obeys.

She reminds him of the episode’s title and that he himself came up with it.

Charles sighs in agreement and takes her hand.

Then he surprises her by saying “as long as there’s all this free entertainment,” they might as well dance to the music.

And, marvelously, they do! This is a really well-written scene.

It ends with them kissing, quite passionately. I suppose ragtime might get you in the mood, if the musical fare you’re used to is a nonstop diet of “Bringing in the Sheaves.”

The next day, Albert is lurking by the open hotel door. He peeks in and notices the lobby is undefended.

On the bulletin board, we see an advertisement for Chang’s Chinese Hand Laundry. As we discussed in our recap for “To Live With Fear,” Chinese immigrants did come to Dakota Territory at this time, and, as they did in coastal cities, established laundry businesses. This led to longstanding stereotypes of Chinese Americans as subservient, pidgin-English-speaking laundry workers, to the point where in the 1930s a labor union formed to educate policymakers and combat discrimination against them. 

On the desk is a pile of newspapers, which Charles has decided to sell on the honor system.

The drawbacks of this system are exposed when Albert grabs the newspapers and the money and tries to dart out.

However, it turns out the Dakota has a bouncer of its own – one Laura Ingalls, who races down the stairs and tackles the thief.

Outside, we notice another cog in the works of Standish’s business empire whirling by.

Pa comes running in and demands an explanation.

Albert quickly thinks up a lie, saying he was just making change for a newspaper “when Whatserface yelled, and it scared me.”

“I see,” says Pa drily. “Well, suppose you show Whatserface and me that fifty-cent piece you wanted to make change for.”

Albert briefly searches his pockets, then says, “Oh no! I must have dropped it! My pa’s gonna skin me alive.”

Pa volunteers to speak to his pa for him, but Albert says the old man’s dying of measles so he’d better not.

Impressed by the lad’s bullshit, Pa lets him go.

“Did you ever hear anyone make an excuse like that?” Laura says with wonder.

“Yep . . . you!” Pa says, and laughs.

Cut to a bell ringing in a church tower that’s identical to the one we saw in Boswell, Minnesota, in “‘Be My Friend.’”

DAGNY: Do you think they made that bell out of all the toys in the town?

All the expatriate Grovesters come out of the church.

Mrs. Oleson is saying something, but I can’t hear what it is. (The subtitle transcriptionist takes a stab at it, coming up with “My birds seem more dainty,” but I can’t think what that’s supposed to mean.)

Caroline approaches her and asks if Nellie and Willie will be joining their school roster.

AMELIA: These two are pretty inconsistent about last names versus first names.

WILL: Depends what kind of mood they’re in.

But Mrs. O says she’d rather die than send her kids to their school. (Paraphrase, but again, not much of one.)

She announces that they’ll be sending Nellie and Willie to the private school.

Nels objects to the cost, and Willie says they can solve the problem by not sending them to school at all, which makes Nellie giggle.

Harriet takes Nels aside and says, “The children are used to being rich!” She says they’ll just have to think of something.

They bicker a bit, and Harriet says, “If you loved them, you’d send them to the school.”

Nels says, “Well, I’ve got a life insurance policy. . . . If I killed myself, then you’d have enough money to enroll them in the private school.”

Harriet responds by looking at him lovingly and saying, “Nels! Would you do that for us?”

AMELIA: This is pretty dark humor for Little House.

Harriet immediately decides to apply for the barmaid job at Standish’s to finance the kids’ tuition, and when we cut to their apartment we learn she got it.

Nels expresses outrage, though I’m not sure why.

Harriet is putting on a choker with a large fake flower on it.

A couple of absent friends get name-dropped then, as Nellie says Reverend Alden hates alcohol and Mrs. O responds that Doc Baker considers it medicine. (Not as much as Dr. Logan did, though.)

Willie observes that, given the healing properties of booze, they can just tell people Mrs. Oleson has become a nurse. (Points for effort, but the phrasing falls a little flat as an epigram, if you ask me.)

Mrs. Oleson reports to work then, and Harlan the Bouncer hands her over to the barmaid from last week, whose name is revealed to be Josie. (Josie is Jodean Lawrence, who was on Days of Our Lives and Falcon Crest as well as Father Murphy and Whiz Kids.)

(She was also in Revenge of the Virgins, a soft-core porn film from the 1950s (!).)

Josie might have been the half-undressed woman Andrew Garvey was peeping at last week, but I’m not sure about that.

Josie is nice enough, but advises Mrs. O to put more makeup over her crow’s feet. (“Crow’s feet” is a very old metaphor indeed, dating back at least to Geoffrey Chaucer.)

`The kinges fool is woned to cryen loude,  

Whan that him thinketh a womman bereth hir hye,

 “So longe mote ye live, and alle proude,

 Til crowes feet be growe under your ye.”

Geoffrey Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde

Harriet looks at her in surprise and says, “These are not crow’s feet. . . . They’re laugh lines!”

“Honey, nothin’s that funny,” Josie says.

(“Laugh lines,” on the other hand, didn’t appear till at least the 1920s. The idiom, that is, not the wrinkles themselves.)

Josie walks away, leaving Harriet to make some hilarious faces as she tries stretching out her “laugh lines.”

Then we get a rare thing indeed: a scene that’s surely meant to be “afterglow” following Charles and Caroline having, erm, popcorn!

Caroline is brushing her hair as Charles lies in bed. They’re pleasantly chitchatting; it must be great for them to have a room without any kids in it, probably for the first time in sixteen years.

Well, British Caroline says Laura’s making Mary a braille card as a birthday surprise.

AMELIA: Why does Caroline have a British accent sometimes?

WILL: Because Karen Grassle’s a trained Shakespearean actor. You can tell a trained Shakespearean because they go into British accents even when neither they nor their characters are British. They are the finest actors in the world.

Ma says she’s squirreled away a dollar for Mary’s present, but Pa says that isn’t enough. (Really? It would be about thirty dollars in today’s money.)

Pa says he’s thinking of asking Standish for an advance on his salary so they can buy her something nice. (Oh, come on! I can’t picture him ever actually doing that. Then again, he did mortgage his life away to buy Rev. Alden a pipe organ once.)

He says he’ll do it, but she can pick the present because his gifts aren’t always the greatest.

Then he says, “I can’t wait for my birthday! I know just what I want.” (In “To Live With Fear” Pa seems to be celebrating his in September, so it would make sense for him to bring it up here; unfortunately, “The Inheritance” contradicts this by suggesting it’s in June.)

Charles jokes he wants “the biggest pair of earmuffs in the world,” to keep the saloon noise out.

They both laugh, then Pa adds “It’s awful here!”, which makes them laugh even harder.

The camera takes us out the window, where we see the silhouettes of their neighbors, who have also chosen to dance to the music.

The next morning, Nels is mopping the saloon floor when Charles comes in.

They do a bit of mild city-bashing, then Charles invites him and his family to Mary’s birthday party.

Charles asks Standish for the advance, but he irritably refuses.

WILL [as STANDISH]: “Cash on the barrel, Ingalls.”

We cut to Alice Garvey and the kids heading down the boardwalk, presumably to their new school.

I believe the ZZ Top Guy passes by as they do.

On the way, they pass Albert, who’s shining Junior Standish’s shoes.

Laura, who’s carrying her slate and McGuffey, stops to tease him about the newspaper incident. She says she thought she might have seen him in church on Sunday, but he says, Mr. Edwards-style, that he sees no reason to believe in God considering the bad hand he’s been dealt in life.

Junior Standish tells Laura to get lost, and shoves her, but she responds by instantly knocking him on his ass.

DAGNY: I liked how in Walnut Grove, Leslie Landon said her dad had her read the Little House books to see if they had dramatic potential and if kids would like them.

Junior backs down, pays Albert and leaves, though he does call out to Laura “I’ll see you later!”

WILL: See? If I had knocked those people over at the State Fair, I’m sure it would have played out the exact same way!

Albert mentions that her vanquished foe was Mr. Standish’s son. She doesn’t seem put out by that news, and she changes the subject to ask if he’s going to join the new school.

Albert says he gets his lessons from the streets, and when pressed, says his parents also don’t care whether he goes to school or not.

Nellie and Willie suddenly appear in their new school uniforms.

Nellie says, “Don’t you think it’s funny, children going to study in a stable?” and Laura says, “No funnier than a jackass going to study in a school.”

That’s excellent, yes? Even Willie snickers at it.

As they leave, Willie confides to Laura that he hates his uniform and wishes he was going to public school too.

Nellie calls for him to catch up.

DAGNY: That’s a great Harriet impression from Arngrim.

Albert tells Laura then that his pa is taking him fishing that afternoon, but shrugs off her request to join them another time.

Back in the Dakota kitchen, Baby Grace is sitting in a high chair. (I’m realizing I neglected to mention previously that Grace Ingalls was a real person. She was, though she was born in Burr Oak, Iowa, rather than in Walnut Grove.)

Charles comes in, and Caroline says she met a “Mrs. Carroll” who’s a hatmaker, and who said she’d give them a good price on a custom-made hat for Mary – four or five dollars, the equivalent of $120 to $150 today.

Instead of telling her he didn’t get the advance, Charles lies and says he hasn’t talked to Standish yet.

Then he heads straight out to a pawn shop to sell his fake fiddle.

The grumpy store owner, addressing him as “young man” (Landon was 41), offers him three dollars for it, but Charles talks him up to five.

Portrayed by Charles Alvin Bell, who was in The Music Man and on Days, the pawn shop guy is credited as a Mr. Davis.

While they’re finishing their transaction, Albert sneaks into the shop and steals a lantern.

But Pa chases after him.

The two run through town. Last week, wonderful reader jtoddward reminded me that Albert has his own theme song, a cheerful tune that leaps and swoops in the upper strings, supported by chugga-chugga train-sound percussion.

Albert darts through the crowds, and eventually escapes under the back steps of what appears to be a coffin maker’s shop – surely another Oliver Twist reference, since Oliver briefly serves as an apprentice to the Nels-Oleson-ish coffin maker Mr. Sowerberry. (I actually work in an old coffin factory myself, in Northeast Minneapolis.)

Unfortunately for Albert, Pa has seen him, and crawls under the steps himself.

He tells Albert this time he’s got to talk to his father. But Albert tells him he has no parents and that this hidey-hole is his permanent residence.

DAGNY: What color are Caroline’s eyes?

WILL: Blue. Remember when she was cutting off her leg, they had all those weird closeups of her eye?

DAGNY: And Charles’s are green?

WILL: Yes.

DAGNY: But Laura’s are brown? There should be zero chance parents with blue and green eyes could produce a brown-eyed child.

WILL: Probably Laura’s real father is another handyman.

Then Albert upsets Pa by referring to himself as “a bastard.”

He says he was born in an orphanage to an unwed mother (more echoes of Twist).

He calmly explains that he ran away about three years ago, and says “I do all right” staying “here and other places.”

DAGNY: His hair looks pretty clean for living in a crawlspace for three years.

Albert says he only steals what he needs, and that he took the lantern so he’d be able to read under the steps. (I doubt the landlord would approve of this arrangement, at least not if Albert’s a Mary-Ingalls-type reader.)

He refuses to tell Charles where his orphanage was, saying he’d rather go to jail than return there.

But he does surrender the lantern and thanks Pa for not turning him in.

Well, Pa returns to the pawn shop . . . and buys the lamp for Albert.

He crawls back under the steps and gives it to him.

WILL [as VOICEOVER LAURA]: “The Great Winoka Fire began sometime that night. . . .”

Then he invites Albert to come to Mary’s party and have some cake.

Back at the hotel, Ma comes down the stairs, and we see from a sign on the wall that dinner service actually ends at eight, not seven.

Pa gets back and gives Ma the money. She says Standish can’t be so bad if he agreed to the advance.

Heading out to the store, she bumps into Jonathan Garvey, who glumly says he hasn’t found a job yet.

Then she passes the pawn shop, and instantly recognizes Charles’s fake fiddle in the window. Would she really? Who knows, but David gives us a slappin’ dance tune on the soundtrack anyway.

Meanwhile, at the blind school, Adam knocks on Mary’s door, this time waiting until she invites him in.

Happily, we find her Stupid Mary persona hasn’t totally evaporated, as she says to Adam that Ma and Pa probably forgot her birthday.

Adam plays along, then he touches her face and says, “You look beautiful.”

It’s a nice moment, but then he skeeves it up by saying “Sixteen years old, huh? You’d best be getting married soon, young lady.”

(Despite stereotypes, the average age for an American woman to get married in 1890, the earliest year for which we have data, was actually 22.)

DAGNY: His lips are chapped too. They must have filmed all these stories under really dry conditions.

Mary hints that she’d love to be asked, and they kiss to more music from the kind of mellow calliope thing David introduced us to last week. You know, it strikes me that it could be a melodica or “keyboard harmonica,” which P.D.Q. Bach was known to use as a continuo instrument.

The instrument became (sort of) better known a few years back with a series of videos from a duo known as Melodica Men.

That night, Pa shepherds the party guests into the kitchen. There’s not really much oversight of this joint, is there?

Mrs. Oleson compliments Laura on the “funny little cake” she’s made.

“Harriet, be quiet,” Nels whispers, and then Ma gently says, “I know it’s hard for you, Mrs. Oleson, but you won’t have to be quiet for long.” HA! This episode has a much funnier script than the first part did.

Laura snorts with laughter, surely spraying saliva and mucus all over her funny little cake.

Then we see Harlan the Bouncer crossing the street with his pal Glover from last week.

Harlan sees Adam and Mary coming up the boardwalk, and says, “Look at what that blind schoolteacher’s got with him.” (Dehumanizing and disgusting, that “what.”)

DAGNY: Is that John C. Reilly?

Harlan steps in Adam’s way and says, “You probably don’t know it, boy, but that’s a good-looking woman there.” (Or a good-looking sixteen-year-old girl, but whatever.)

Realizing Mary’s also blind, he says, “She’s blind too! Hey, Glover, even a guy as ugly as you got a chance with her.”

He keeps harassing them – until a familiar voice shouts out his name.

And Charles Ingalls comes walking up the thoroughfare like a stud bull.

His shirt might as well be open to the waist, and he’s breathing like a bull, too.

“Adam, I want you and Mary to go in the hotel, all right?” he says.

Harlan steps back to let the blind ones pass. You kind of think he’s going to trip Adam, but he doesn’t.

Mary quietly asks Pa to come with them, but he’s clearly got other business.

“That’s a fine-lookin’ little blind girl ya got there, Ingalls,” Harlan says. “Fine-lookin’.”

At this, Charles turns and smashes him in the face.

When Mary and Adam come into the hotel, the revelers get ready to surprise them, but Mary yells for help and they all go running out to her.

Mary briefs them on the sitch, and Jonathan Garvey asks Nels to come out him to investigate (though surely Nels wouldn’t be much help in a physical fight).

When they find Charles, he’s already been beaten up – he’s covered in gore, actually – and the culprits have gone.

This next sequence is very satisfying.

Garvey races to the saloon, where Standish is counting money with a dealer.

He approaches Harlan and Glover, who are drinking at the bar, and says quietly, “I think you two just beat up on a friend of mine.”

Harlan makes a snarky remark – but he looks a little wary as he faces this eight-foot behemoth.

Garvey essentially dares Harlan to try and “bounce” him out of the saloon. (Bouncer was a well-known term by this time.)

But the minute Harlan makes a move, Garvey simply punches him into the piano.

Then Glover approaches . . . and Garvey punches him right in the dick!

He tosses Glover into another room like you or I might toss a stuffed animal, then picks up Harlan, also like he weighs nothing, and squeezes him around the middle as hard as he can.

Harlan starts making these terrible strangled screaming sounds. It would be quite disturbing if it were anybody else; but from him they sound kind of nice.

We notice Harlan is bleeding from the mouth, but whether it’s from the punch or from the internal organ damage is impossible to say.

Garvey dumps him in a heap, and as he’s leaving, Standish addresses him without looking up, saying he’s welcome to Harlan’s old job if he wants it.

Garvey says “all right” suspiciously, then exits.

Outside, Charles is wiping his bloodied nose, but he seems to have recovered his sense of humor.

DAGNY: These water troughs can’t be very sanitary. People are always cleaning their wounds in them.

Garvey and Nels help him back to the restaurant, where Mary is very upset.

Ma is horrified at what’s happened, but Pa hushes her so as not to ruin Mary’s party. 

Mary says she was worried he’d get into a fight, but sitting down gingerly he says “I’m a farmer, not a fighter.”

WILL [as MICHAEL JACKSON]: “I’m a farmer, not a fighter!”

Ma says let’s do presents, and then in a serious voice Mary says she hopes Pa will understand her first gift.

And of course it’s his fake fiddle. (“Gift of the Magi” again.)

Mary smiles and Pa cries, of course, as they pass him the instrument to a wonderfully expressive variation on the theme from a solo violinist on the soundtrack.

DAGNY: Notice they don’t trust Carrie to handle the fiddle.

WILL: Yeah, she’d drop it for sure. “Oh, damn.”

And then, who should come creeping in to the party but Albert.

Pa welcomes him to the table.

DAGNY: Albert should be, like, “Jesus Christ! What happened to you?”

Laura gives Mary the card she made.

DAGNY: Does Laura have a flower in her hair? How cute is that!

Mary reads it out loud, so moved she weeps tears of happiness.

DAGNY: Do her tears put out the candles?

Alice Garvey is crying too. So is Nels.

And so is Laura, who then gets probably the biggest hug she’s ever gotten from her sister.

Albert just looks around wondering what kind of freakshow he’s gotten himself involved with here.

Using her “gagging with emotion” voice, Mary thanks them, and blesses them, and says how lucky they are to be together.

Even Mrs. Oleson is crying, but Willie just wants cake.

And although it must hurt him to do so, Pa raises the fake fiddle and plays a sprightly dance number.

Everybody claps along on the downbeats, which is traditional for this type of folk music, no matter how “un-cool” many annoying musicians will tell you it is.

Bum-Bum-Ba-Dum!

STYLE WATCH: Ma and Alice have on some nicely coordinated outfits in their first scene.

Mrs. Oleson wears Ladies’ Cut Pinky.

But for Charles, it’s a Pinky-free episode.

He does appear to go commando again, though.

THE VERDICT: Part One got us off to a sluggish start, but boy, does Part Two pay off. Magic moments galore, and a heck of an encouraging first story of the new season. Quite funny, too.

UP NEXT: The Winoka Warriors