Sweet Sixteen

That’s Professor Pint To You; or

Two Girls, One Churn?

 (a recap by Will Kaiser)

Title: Sweet Sixteen

Airdate: February 25, 1980

Written by John T. Dugan

Directed by Michael Landon

SUMMARY IN A NUTSHELL: Suddenly and magically, Laura becomes a grown-up woman teacher, which inexplicably makes Almanzo fall in love with her. Guest-starring the Mrs. Elrod from Halloween II.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This recap contains some distasteful jokes – very. Better skip it. – WK

RECAP: First things first. Sad to hear about the passing of memorable guest star Matt Clark, whose family was killed by typhus in “Plague.”

Clark recovered from that incident only to have his family killed again in “Mortal Mission” – this time by anthrax. (Mind you, not the band.)

With a mélange of pathos and insanity that screamed Little House, Clark was wonderful in both these stories.

Dags and Roman and I recently watched the bizarre puppet nightmare Return to Oz (which I had never seen before – it did not disappoint), and I was pleased to spot him playing Dorothy’s Uncle Henry.

Anyways, we’ve been doing The Project for five years now, yet quite unbelievably some members of our social set still haven’t joined for an episode.

Today we welcome our dear friends Douglas and his much younger husband Lee. 

Douglas and I attended music school together in our youth and he will always be a sort of little brother to me. 

His (much younger) husband Lee (he was named after the jeans) is literally the nicest person on Earth. Which you’d have to be, to put up with Douglas.

LEE: I have only seen about fifteen minutes of this show in my life.

WILL: Oh, you’ll catch on quick.

LEE: I mean, I’m basically familiar with the concept. Doesn’t Michael Landon go blind or something?

WILL: Oh my God. . . .

We were delighted to have them, even if two thirds of Douglas’s comments can’t be shared due to their obscenity. (Some of them made it through, so be warned.)

Amelia came over too. Let’s get started.

After a snip of fluffy nonsense music, we get “Laura and Almanzo’s Ooey-Gooey Love Theme” over a shot of children walking to school through the forest.

The kids are backlit by the sun, so it’s hard to make out faces. (I think the Girl with Hair of Deepest Auburn is amongst them.)

All these kids must live east of town, since the sun is behind them.

A man driving a buggy passes them on the road. We don’t get a good look at him either.

Strangely, the buggy continues to be backlit, even when shown from behind. Twisty road, I suppose.

Anyways, the man ends up on Eliza Jane’s settee. 

The man, whom Eliza Jane addresses as “Mr. Williams,” is an elderly, rather robust dude wearing pince-nez and a not-very-comfortable-looking gray suit.

It took me a moment to place him, but he’s Parley Baer, who played J.W. Diamond, good-natured rail baron and father of longtime background Grovester Herbert.

And no, his full name wasn’t Parley Day Baer.

Baer has one of the longest resumes of any guest star we’ve had, of which Dragnet, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, I Love Lucy, You Are There, The Danny Thomas Show, The Rifleman, Dennis the Menace, Have Gun – Will Travel, Rawhide, Bonanza, The Addams Family, Perry Mason, The Fugitive, Gomer Pyle – USMC, Lassie, Hogan’s Heroes, Green Acres, Bewitched, Charlie’s Angels, Three’s Company, Newhart, The Golden Girls, Growing Pains, Life Goes On, Quantum Leap, Mad About You and Star Trek: Voyager represent only a tiny slice.

He had regular roles on Andy Griffith, Ozzie and Harriet, The Dukes of Hazzard, L.A. Law and The Young and the Restless. 

He was on the Little House-adjacent shows Kung Fu and Father Murphy, plus he was in the movie Dave, which my first wife loved.

Mr. Williams, who seems pleasant enough, says I’ll cut through the crap. (Paraphrase.)

“A teacher down in Currie,” he says (real place, about twenty miles southwest of the Grove), is in need of a substitute.

This teacher, a Miss Trimble, has broken her leg, and Mr. Williams is apparently a school superintendent of some sort.

“I thought perhaps your best student of the required teaching age might fill the bill,” he says. 

I don’t know if this is how they did it in those days; but I suppose I don’t know it isn’t. I’m sure schools sometimes took what they could get, to a certain extent, teacher-wise-speaking.

The bigger question for me is why Superintendent Williams would turn to Walnut Grove, twenty miles away, for help.

Slayton, Minnesota, is more than twice the size of Walnut Grove, and it’s half the distance from Currie. (It did exist then.)

For that matter, Tracy, Minnesota, depicted as a large, bustling town in 1883-M, was just thirteen miles away. Surely they’d be more likely to have teachers than a little Nowheresville like Walnut Grove. 

(We’re digging out from a blizzard this week, so those pics are not exaggerations.)

Actually, now that I think about it, why didn’t they ask Caroline to be the sub? She’s done it before, locally.

But I suppose they couldn’t ask a wife and mother to step away for weeks at a time, so spinsters preferred.

I’m getting ahead. No matter, this is the premise we’re given, and as always we’ll have to accept it.

And of course, it can be explained if Tracy and Slayton are rife with anthrax, or something, and that’s why Superintendent Williams came here to Nowheresville.

“My only student who’s sixteen,” Eliza Jane says, “is also my poorest student.”

Now, I know it’s early to stop the action, but I can’t help wondering whom Eliza Jane refers to here. A student older than Laura . . . the only one older than Laura, in fact?

Well, confining ourselves to Season Six in our search, our options are limited.

Fan faves Not-Linda Hunt and the Non-Binary Kid have both been around for a very long time. (N-B was introduced in “Country Girls”!)

Then again, it was established in “I─── Kid,” 67 stories ago, that Not-Linda is at least an average student. It’s hard to imagine her grades falling so dramatically in a mere 40 years (LHUT)!

Not-Gelfling Boy, who’s been around a lot this season, is a possibility. (Actor John Bisom was fifteen, which is close enough.)

We know nothing of his academic capabilities. He does run with a bad crowd at times, and sometimes displays a “sassy” attitude.

Otherwise, the most likely match for Eliza Jane’s description would seem to be Andrew Garvey, acknowledged by consensus to be the dumbest kid in town, probably including Willie Oleson.

But Patrick Labyorteaux was only fourteen at the end of Season Six.

Looking to this season’s guest cast, Bart Slater looked older than sixteen, and was a bad student too.

Or I suppose it might be Penelope Parker. 

We never saw either of them after their debut episodes, though.

But I think I’ve solved this mystery. Also in “I─── Kid,” we met Seth Johnson, a nasty and violent racist who we know was likely abused by his mustachioed father, Omaha.

Seth was played in that story by Willie Aames of Charles in Charge fame, and we didn’t see the character again afterwards . . . until this season, when a very similar kid wearing a close-enough similar shirt began popping up in stories. 

I think it’s probable Eliza Jane’s “oldest, poorest” student is in fact Seth. He probably moved to Winoka during Season Five’s bad times and only just returned this year. (People moved around a lot in those days, as we’ve seen.)

Moving on. “My best student,” Eliza Jane then says, “is only twelve.” There’s no question who she means by that, is there.

It’s interesting that she describes him as being twelve, though. Apparently whatever witch’s spell was keeping him perpetually ten – see Albert’s Age – has finally broken. (In real life, Matthew Labyorteaux was thirteen at this point.)

But Eliza Jane says maybe Laura Ingalls would be acceptable, because “she’ll be sixteen in only two weeks.”

Now, in real life Laura Ingalls’s birthday was February 7th, and previously we tried to keep the real and TV universes together by (charitably) assigning a February date to “The Music Box,” in which Laura receives a fabulous dictionary as a birthday gift.

In real life, interestingly, Laura did become a teacher at sixteen years old – in 1883, which is exactly where this story has landed in the “M” timeline. (When the show’s finished, I’ll post the whole thing.)

Whew. Less than three minutes of story, 1,300 words of recap, for those of you who keep track of such things. It could be worse (and has been before).

“I happen to know [Laura] is most anxious to become a teacher,” Eliza Jane says. (How come Eliza Jane doesn’t know about Laura’s designs on Almanzo by this point? She’s a smart cookie. How come Mrs. Oleson doesn’t? Laura hasn’t exactly been trying to hide it.)

Superintendent Williams gives a what-the-heck shrug.

At school, we join an O’Cat game in progress.

The players today include Albert, Andy, the Midsommar Kid, the Weeble, Sharp-Faced Brother, Prototype Shannen Doherty, the Girl Who Dresses Like Heidi (not dressed like Heidi today, though) and the Misbehaving Little Girl.

Inside, Superintendent Williams has taken a seat at the Bead’s desk. (I still think of it as the Bead’s desk.)

Eliza Jane just sits in the gallery. It’s like on Battlestar Galactica where Admiral Cain swoops in and takes command away from Adama. 

As I said, Williams seems pretty benign, though. At the moment, he’s grilling Laura on Thomas Jefferson.

WILL: What is this? Is he just testing her general knowledge?

DOUGLAS: What else would they teach rural kids in those days? Don’t drink out of the outhouse pit?

Laura confidently reels off some fun facts. (She does not mention the sex slave thing.)

Superintendent Williams, who didn’t really seem to be listening, says, “Congratulations. You are now a teacher.”

AMELIA: Wouldn’t he care more about her ability to control kids than what she knows about U.S. Presidents? He should.

(Amelia is a para in a school herself, so she would know.)

Williams smiles and signs her certificate. You know, I have some pince-nez from when I was Hercule Poirot for Halloween, and when Roman was doing mock trial, he used them to bring a little style to one of his witness portrayals.

Very proud of these kids. And if you’re not a fan of novelty eyewear, best stay away from our house.

Anyways, in real life, her teacher’s certificate was in fact signed by a George A. Williams!

The Currie assignment will apparently be a one-month gig, paying $20 (about $640). Food and lodgings are covered, and she gets half the money up-front.

In “School Mom,” Caroline got paid “the same as Miss Beadle,” but they didn’t say how much that was.

“Troublemaker” never went into the matter.

And of course, I’m sure Adam, Mary and Hester-Sue got paid nothing. (Why didn’t Currie go to Hester-Sue, in fact? The Blind School is closed, and I’m sure she would do a great job. Where does she live, anyways?)

(Of course, we all know why they didn’t go to Hester-Sue, don’t we, so there’s no more to be said about that.)

Well, thanks to the Annual Report of the Commissioner on the Statistics of Minnesota, 1882-1884, we also know precisely how much a female teacher in Redwood County got paid in 1883: $28.50 a month ($912 in today’s money). 

The wages of a male teacher were $40.16 ($1,285) per month. Looking at the other counties, it seems male teachers usually made about ten dollars more per month than women.

Anyways, $20 seems a reasonable salary for Laura, I think. She is a novice, and when Mary went to Willow Prairie she only got $15.

Williams throws in an extra ten dollars for “initial expenses.”

Then he says she’ll be boarding with “the disabled teacher, Miss Trimble.” I wondered if they applied that term to people back then, but they did. Of course, he’s using the word literally (as in “disable the engine, man!”) rather than as an umbrella category, like many people do today.

Williams suggests Laura not worry about Miss Trimble, who’s a good egg.

“And you needn’t worry about transportation!” Eliza Jane burbles behind her. “I’ll speak to Almanzo, he’ll be delighted to take you!”

So, Eliza Jane must know about Laura and Manly by this point, huh? And she approves, because she’s volunteering two full days of his time a week, with all the trips back and forth. She doesn’t seem at all worried he’ll refuse.

Then again, he does seem pretty deferential to Eliza Jane in this season. Maybe that’s why she isn’t worried.

Perhaps Sis ordering him around created the misogyny that manifests when he’s a complete ass to Laura all the time.

Williams hands over the certificate.

Channeling her Grandpa Holbrook, Laura spins around crying, “I’m a teacher, I’m a teacher!”

Laura runs down a hill. She isn’t wearing a coat, and the grass is green, but there are no leaves on the trees so we’ll continue on the assumption this is “February.”

I guess if it is February, that would make it 1884, seventeen years after the birth of the real Laura Ingalls Wilder, not sixteen. But don’t worry about that for now.

Pa and Bandit are outside. She tells them the news, and they’re overjoyed. (Well, Bandit doesn’t really react.)

Next we see Laura at the Mercantile, looking at a new dress whilst being sized up by Harriet Oleson and Power-Clash Ma.

The dress is a sort of . . . I don’t know what color. Burnt orange? I’m no good with descriptions. It’s basically the same color as Michael Landon’s chest, which we call “roast chicken.”

(Actually, the internet suggests the color of the dress is “Glazed Carrot,” whilst Michael Landon’s chest color, it says, is “Picante.”)

The dress has blue trim; it looks sort of very-deep-blue-green to me, but I’m color-blind. (The internet calls this one “Moonlit Pool.”)

The dress has tiny flowers on it that I often imagine are little penguins walking all over her.

(Yah, there was no way I was gonna add penguins to that whole fucking dress!)

Ma and Nice Harriet have another cute little conversation about aging.

Of course, Harriet ruins it by suggesting she’s younger than she actually is.

She says she had Nellie when she was “a baby myself.”

Caroline giggles, then says seriously, “It must have been a difficult delivery.”

Harriet gives her a look, then genially admits it was. I have the feeling that, pros though they may be, Grassle and MacGregor are trying not to laugh for real here.

Harriet says at least Willie’s still a child, and right on cue Laura chases him into the store, saying he peeped when she was trying on Glazed Carrot.

From previous encounters, we know Willie is as close to a porn fiend as a boy could probably be in those days.

DAGNY: Is this one called “Meet Willie’s Willie”?

AMELIA: Well, they didn’t have the internet then.

DOUGLAS: Yeah. No “Two Girls, One Churn.”

Katherine MacGregor and Jonathan Gilbert, then, do a fun little yelling-at-Willie scene. 

Nels comes in, and Harriet foreshadows Laura’s future Zaldamo problems by decrying the nature of men. 

DAGNY: Wow. And she doesn’t even know he cheated on her.

If this were a musical, they could give Mrs. O a show-stopping number here where she expounds on everything wrong with men. In Little House on the Prairie: The Musical, maybe they did.

Well, on what must be a Sunday, Almanzo shows up to drive Laura to Currie.

Inside, Laura is wearing a getup which pairs a heavy brown coat with a straw hat. (In February?)

I’m pleased to see she’s taking The Famous Dictionary with her!

Ma and Pa proudly send her off. Pa even calls her a “young woman,” which doesn’t go unnoticed by Laura.

DAGNY: Her look is very Anne of Green Gables.

Next we see Manly’s buggy traversing the fruited plain to strains of “Ooey Gooey.”

DOUGLAS: This is what Dakota County was like before they built the Koch refinery.

Laura is blathering, trying to draw attention to her new dress.

Manly takes the bait.

DOUGLAS: Almanzo is kind of a poor man’s Bo Duke, isn’t he?

AMELIA: Luke Skywalker, I always say.

LEE: Who’s Bo Duke?

Lee is of course much younger than Douglas.

DAGNY: The writing in this scene is about as good as the old “Go the Fuck to Sleep” scenes with Mary.

They arrive at Miss Trimble’s, a nice-enough-looking place with a large yard in what seems to be a charming wooded area.

We actually see a normal-size evergreen tree for once instead of just those giant logpole pines.

When Barnum raises his tail to do his business, Haskell B. scares us a bit, but he finally cuts away before anything graphic happens.

Laura thinks Zaldamo is flirting with her, then realizes he isn’t. He leaves.

LEE: Wait, what happened?

AMELIA: He’s just sick of hearing about her stupid life.

Miss Trimble’s parlor is richly decorated. They’ve been overdoing that a bit lately, I think.

There’s a fairly large sculpture on the table clearly modeled after Giambologna’s Flying Mercury.

If you think this pagan artwork suggests a decadent streak in Miss Trimble (remember, most of the Grovesters have Moses figurines), you’re not wrong, because she’s revealed to be a “wildly independent”-looking Harold and Maude–type oldster smoking a pipe!

DOUGLAS: Couldn’t she have just taught from her chair?

AMELIA: Probably not.

She’s also revealed, I am pleased to announce, to be Mrs. Elrod from Halloween II!

Mrs. Elrod is an old lady who lives in the Haddonfield neighborhood where Michael Myers is a-stalkin’ people. 

For whatever reason, she’s making ham sandwiches at, like, 11:00 at night whilst her husband watches Night of the Living Dead on TV.

Michael Myers does not kill her or her husband, just steals her ham-sandwich knife and sneaks back outside. 

She does scream, though, after accidentally touching some blood that dripped off his hand.

It’s her only scene, but without question, Mrs. Elrod is the most popular minor character in Halloween II. Even more than Dr. Frederick “Janet-Get-Me-Some-More-Coffee” Mixter.

Or poor Mr. Garrett, the security guard who gets scared by a cat (and hit with a hammer).

Even Young Michael Myers can’t compete.

And of course, Lindsey Wallace does appear in the movie at the very beginning, but she doesn’t really count as being in it since it’s just a clip from the first movie.

Anyways, Mrs. Elrod gets a catchphrase of her own. 

“Harold,” she says in her flat Alabama accent, “you want mayonnaise on your sandwich?” 

She adds, “How ’bout mustard?”

I cannot emphasize enough how iconic her line reading is amongst serious fans of the Halloween series.

Mrs. Elrod has been immortalized in (non-AI!) art.

She’s been on t-shirts.

About ten years ago, she had her own social media presence. (It was a scream, haw haw!)

Finally, somebody made her into an action figure, or at least into a picture of an action figure. (The high quality is your tipoff it wasn’t me.)

Well, here, you can judge the scene for yourself. There’s no violence whatsoever, though you do see Michael Myers standing in a doorway at one point, and there’s some scary music.

Anyways, Mrs. Elrod and Miss Trimble are both played by Lucille Benson, and if she was in a project, it was usually worth watching.

Her resume isn’t super-long, but it has some treasures.

WILL: Oh, she was in all kinds of great things. Halloween Two, Paul Bartel’s Private Parts. 

WILL: In Duel, she was a crazy lady displaying snakes in the desert, and when the evil trucker runs over her habitats she runs around screaming “MY SNAKES, MY SNAKES!”

(Don’t worry, most of the snakes seem to survive.)

She had regular roles on both Bosom Buddies and The Ropers. (She played Lucy Lee Flippin’s mother on the latter!)

She appeared on Bonanza, Mannix, The Waltons, Wonder Woman, Eight is Enough, How the West Was Won, The Dukes of Hazzard, and Alice.

And she was on Love Boat! (The first Love Boat person we’ve had in a while, actually. I was starting to get worried.)

Anyways, Laura doesn’t know what to make of this eccentric person at first, but she turns out to be quite friendly, saying “Call me Minnie!”

She also has a bit of a tic where she talks to herself, Gollum-style.

WILL: Do you think she’s queer-coded?

DAGNY: Probably.

Miss Trimble says she’ll put together some supper for them.

WILL [as MISS TRIMBLE]: “Laura, you want mayonnaise on your sandwich?”

Then we see the Currie school, which really is in the middle of nowhere.

A bunch of kids are playing a game in the yard, but unlike the freakazoids in Willow Prairie, they seem pleasant and normal.

A tall boy notices Laura approaching. “She’s just a kid!” he says as she passes. 

Laura enters the school.

They actually shot all the interior scenes in an echoey real one-room schoolhouse. It looks fine, but it’s a strange contrast to the Groveland Elementary/Middle soundstage.

LEE: That is a big TV for the 1800s.

Despite having no lesson plans, or really having done any preparation at all, Laura rings the bell.

WILL: Are those beams safe? Could they really be holding anything up?

LEE: Yeah, they look a little “Popeye’s Village.”

The kids all seem to be weird doppelgangers of the ones back home.

DAGNY: Oh my God, isn’t that the kid who died of anthrax?

(He isn’t actually Thomas the Blond Blind Freckle-Faced Moppet, but he is very similar.)

The kids all appear to be between the ages of eight and twelve, except for the tall boy, a Harrison Ford lookalike who looks almost as old as Almanzo.

Despite, again, having no experience in public speaking or leading a classroom, Laura launches right in.

The tall boy immediately raises his hand to ask her age. He laughs a little, but doesn’t seem nasty, like Mean Harry Baker was in Season One.

Laura says she’s old enough to be a teacher, then adds, “Besides, being bigger doesn’t mean you’re smarter.”

The tall boy looks stung by this and says, “It doesn’t mean you’re dumber, either.”

“I agree,” Laura says, rather formally. “The size of the body has nothing to do with the size of the brain.”

WILL [as LAURA]: “From now on, you will call me ‘Professor Pint.'”

A lot of people have commented that this story and its sequel, “He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not,” present a sudden, jarring “evolution” in Laura’s personality. We’ll keep an eye on that.

The boy gives his name as “Chad Brewster.”

DOUGLAS: Were there a lot of Chads in the Nineteenth Century?

No, there weren’t, but there were a lot of them in the 1970s and 1980s.

Laura calls the roll, and the first two kids named are Ruby and Tommy Dobkins. (Cousins of Elmer’s?)

(Remembering Elmer makes me want to watch that one again. A brave kid.)

Now, in These Happy Golden Years, Laura recounts her experiences as a new teacher in De Smet, Dakota Territory, and her students include a Ruby and a Tommy . . . but in the book, they’re Brewsters as well.

And actually, it seems in LIW’s real history, these “Brewsters” were actually a family named Bouchie, but Laura didn’t depict them very nicely, so she changed their names a la Nellie Owens/Oleson.

It’s all very complex – the people at PioneerGirl.com are much better at explaining these things than I am.

Actually, I was just talking to my therapist yesterday about fandom “multiverses,” which we’ve been chatting about recently in the comments. I find it really intriguing how Little House contains distinct universes including a) real-life events (like Laura encountering the Bouchies, b) Laura’s “remembrance book” reframing in her novels (in which the Bouchies become the Brewsters), and c) the TV show (where those Brewsters morph into a Brewster and two Dobkinses). With all modesty, I like to think that Walnut Groovy is its own filter “verse” of the stories, and things like the Walnut Groovy Awards, in which seventies and eighties TV celebrities give themselves awards like “best screaming,” expands the original even further. (Groovy Season is right around the corner, you know.)

It’s all very complex and exhausting to think about, I know. You can understand why I was talking to my therapist about it!

Anyways, next she calls a Martha Harrison, but we cut away before we get any more names.

After school, Laura finds Miss Trimble sitting in the yard. (In February?)

She reports that “the Beckman brothers got in a fight,” and that Martha Harrison is an idiot.

Minnie doesn’t give a shit about any of that, she just wants to know how Laura did.

“I loved it,” Laura says, baring the gopher fangs.

Laura’s carrying a brown paper package tied up with strings, which she tells Minnie are new boots “with heels,” so she’ll appear taller. (This was famously Michael Landon’s trick, too.)

And we fade to black.

LEE: That’s all we get?

WILL: Yeah. It’s a fifteen-minute show.

Well, after a break, we see Laura clumping across an enormous plain in her new boots. (There isn’t even a road to the school?)

DAGNY: Wait till you get pregnant, Laura, then you’ll really experience shoes not fitting anymore.

That day in class, Laura compliments Not-Thomas the Blind Blond Freckle-Faced Moppet on his reading.

Turns out he’s Tommy Dobkins!

Tommy is played by Jonathan B. Woodward, who was on The Waltons and Battlestar Galactica (the old one, not the one I referred to earlier). (Actually, I suppose they’re both old now.)

What Tommy is reading is a quote from Horace Mann, a mid-Nineteenth Century cultural figure who might today be called a “thought leader” as well as a Congressman.

Mann was best known as a champion of the American public school system. This quote, an epigram (albeit a pretty dumb one) about there not being enough time in a day, was included in McGuffey’s Eclectic Reader and quoted by Laura Ingalls Wilder in Little Town on the Prairie.

The full thing reads:

Lost, yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered for they are gone forever.

Whatever you say, Mann.

Superintendent Williams appears at the door, saying he “just happened to be passing through town” (whatever), and out of the blue asks her to force a kid to do long division in their head on the spot.

Handsome Chad volunteers. He’s Tim Maier, who acted on The ABC After School Special and Faerie Tale Theatre (I loved that when I was a kid) and was in the movie Psycho II. (That one’s no Halloween II, I can tell you.)

Maier actually looks a little like the real Almanzo Wilder, I think!

Yes, I also noticed the insane chalk scrawls on the school walls in that shot, but like Amelia said, no internet.

Laura gives him a problem that’s almost Beadalian in its absurdity, but he answers it.

AMELIA [as SUPERINTENDENT WILLIAMS]: “Congratulations. You are now a teacher.”

LEE: Is that even right?

DOUGLAS: Nobody knows. The guy was just like, “Good enough.”

As for me, I wouldn’t even be able to remember the numbers without writing them down, much less solve the problem.

Chad smiles with pride. Unlike most of the male teenagers we meet on this show, he seems nice.

Mr. Williams tells her to keep up the good work and goes away.

As he drives off, he meets Almanzo, whom, curiously, he addresses by name.

AMELIA: So Manly’s like the township Uber driver?

Meanwhile, Laura dismisses the class and tells Chad he’s very smart but needs to work harder.

Chad shrugs pleasantly and says since he’s going to be a farmer, he doesn’t worry much about school. (The old Herman Stone defense.)

Laura asks him what his dream job would be.

DOUGLAS [wistfully]: “What I’d really like to do is churn butter.”

Chad says he really would like to be a doctor like his grandfather, but says “it’s just a pipe dream.” (That idiom probably was around by that point, but it also probably would have shocked Laura, since it refers to hallucinating from opium.)

“You’ve got the brains,” Laura says.

WILL [singing]: You’ve got the looks! Let’s make lots of money!

(That video gave me the willies when they showed it on Friday Night Videos.)

Showing how boring she’s already become, Laura gives Chad an annoying lecture on aiming high.

Then she says she’s got a doctor friend with an extensive library who might lend them some medical and/or werewolf books.

Chad is pleased as punch. Tim Maier was seventeen, making Chad a far more suitable match for Laura than Zaldamo. (Well, except for the teacher/student conflict of interest.)

Speaking of the Big Z, he arrives, and at first we were worried he was going to beat up Chad, but he doesn’t. (Yet.)

Helping Laura into the buggy, he suddenly stops and starts giving her very weird and creepy looks.

LEE: Isn’t this guy a little old for her?

WILL: They’re probably the same age difference as you and Douglas.

DOUGLAS [MASCULINELY]: “If there’s grass on the field . . .”

(I will note that both Douglas and Lee are technically middle-aged, before anybody starts hyperventilating out there.)

Melissa Gilbert, of course, has gone on the record talking about how uncomfortable she was having to play a love story with a twenty-three-year-old, even if the actual age difference between her and Dean Butler is exactly the same as between Laura and Manly. (They didn’t get married until she was eighteen, but they did begin courting right around this time, under similar circumstances, Uber rides and all.)

Almanzo keeps making goo-goo eyes at her. (I’m sure I’m alienating two thirds of Little House fans by squirming at Laura’s development into a romantic adult, and certainly no offense if you like this story. But I’d take a Blind School fire any day over this stuff, even without the age difference.)

Anyways, Laura seems to ascribe Manly’s newfound interest to her elevator boots.

Back at the Little House, Teenstache Albert is doing chores when Laura returns. (Even though Currie is much closer than Sleepy Eye et al., it still would be night by the time they got back. Especially if it’s February!)

Ma comes flailing out. In fact, this is probably the shortest distance we’ve ever seen her flail.

Laura tells Ma Miss Trimble smokes a pipe, which cracks Ma up.

WILL [as MA]: “A pipe? Better be careful not to kill any babies, ha ha ha!”

DAGNY [as LAURA, laughing]: “Yeah, right, Albert?”

Back at the buggy, Zaldamo starts sulking because Laura has something bigger than him going on in her life for once.

And off he drives, to some loungey cornet from David the Rose.

After another break, we see Laura in bed, giving Ma the poop on Almanzo.

Melissa Gilbert plays this scene very well, capturing a Laura who’s on the dividing line between child and adult.

Grassle is good too, as Ma gives Laura some sensible advice.

DOUGLAS [as MA]: “It’ll hurt at first.”

Not that sensible.

WILL: We’re gonna have to put a warning on this one.

DAGNY: Maybe you can hide the sex jokes, and people can hover over the text if they want to see them.

Ma advises Laura to “just let [Almanzo] pursue,” then departs.

Laura muses on Ma’s tips for a while.

DOUGLAS: Did she just say “chop suey”?

WILL: “Pursuing.”

Downstairs, Pa says, “I’m just making a snack. Want a sandwich?”

WILL [hysterically]: “HAROLD YOU WANT MAYONNAISE ON YOUR SANDWICH???”

DAGNY: Okay.

DAGNY: There’s a lot of sexual symbolism in this one. Lots of pink layers – the curtains, the ham slices . . .

DOUGLAS: Plus Pa’s hair is like 1970s pubic hairstyles.

Ma is vague about the content of her conversation with Laura, but Pa knows what’s up.

Pa says he likes Almanzo, but worries what he might do in a roadside emergency.

Ma says that’s a sensible concern, noting they might also be “attacked by a herd of elephants!”

Ma tells Pa he should worry about his getting all his work done, “with Jonathan away.”

The last we heard of Jonathan Garvey, he was traveling alone to Minneapolis for his mother-in-law’s birthday party. 

That was close to a year ago in Little House Universal Time (LHUT), so either this is a different trip or it was one hell of a party.

The conversation quickly turns to Pa’s aging, which annoys him. 

Then next we see him sharpening an ax, presumably for Zaldamo’s neck.

Speaking of Z, he arrives to take Laura back to Currie. Ma offers him “a cool drink.” (In February?)

Almanzo has come to ask Pa’s permission to ask Laura to the upcoming dance.

Pa doesn’t like this, but he generously says, “Here comes Laura, you’ll have to ask her.”

Grinning and goggle-eyed, Zaldamo spins around.

“Yer pa says I should ask if you want to come with me to the church social this Friday night!” he says, which gets a frown from Pa.

We’ve talked a lot about Laura’s personality changes (or lack thereof) this season; but Almanzo’s is even more sudden and disturbing. Yes, we saw a hint of jealousy when Perley Day expressed interest in Laura in “Wilder and Wilder,” but that alone can’t explain the panting enthusiasm he inexplicably shows in this story.

Laura is pleased, but plays it cool. (Which in turn pleases Pa.)

After they leave, Ma and Pa do the old “your daughter/my daughter” routine, which this show overuses a bit, in my view.

That night at the Wilder farm, Zaldamo paces and broods by the fire until the Iron Maiden tells him to have a cup of tea.

DOUGLAS [as ELIZA JANE]: “You better sit down or you’re gonna burn your chestnuts.”

He distractedly puts too much sugar in his tea,  then alarms Eliza Jane by muttering about “what he’s done” to Laura Ingalls.

But she relaxes when he tells her he just asked Laura to the dance. 

Eliza Jane has no problem with the age gap, even saying she doesn’t think Laura is “just a kid” anymore. (I don’t believe this for a second, but as usual Lucy Lee Flippin sells it beautifully.)

Excited by this endorsement, Almanzo rushes out the door, then remembers it’s night and comes back in to go to bed. (Or something. He doesn’t explain his motivation.)

Back in Currie, Minnie Trimble is reading a book, but she finds it hard to concentrate because her leg itches under its wrappings.

She and Laura reflect on the pleasures of teaching, then Laura says she’s been bringing Chad Brewster medical books from Walnut Grove.

DOUGLAS: Can she make him into a doctor, the way that old man made her a teacher?

Laura heads to school, leaving Minnie to more goofy soliloquizing.

Back in Walnut Grove, Charles is loading lumber into the Chonkywagon in some big barn.

Almanzo appears, and when Pa says he has to make two deliveries, one to Slayton (there goes my anthrax theory) and one to Sleepy Eye, A-zo volunteers to do the Slayton job for him – so he can stop in Currie and see Laura.

Pa doesn’t like this at all, but he accepts the offer. 

“I’ll tell Mr. Miller I’m taking the day off,” Almanzo says, adding, “I’ll be back in a jiff!” (Mr. Miller is the mysterious S.E. Miller, proprietor of the Feed & Seed, host of barn dances and “corn shuckings,” etc.)

(I was doubtful about the use of “in a jiff” for this period, but apparently the expression dates back to the Eighteenth Century.)

LEE: Why does Charles hate Almanzo so much?

DOUGLAS: ’Cause he wants to put milk in Laura’s trough.

And the next thing you know, Almanzo and the Chonkies are approaching the Currie school. (So what vehicle did Pa take to Sleepy Eye?)

AMELIA: Is there no town? Is this the only shelter?

Inside, Chad Brewster, who like Doc Baker doesn’t see God and science as mutually exclusive, is marveling over the stuff he’s learning from Doc’s books.

He and Laura are alone, stomping around and yelling in the big echoey real schoolhouse.

Chad then offers to illustrate some anatomical point for Laura by taking hold of her waist. (Yes, that old trick.)

The door opens. “Hi, Manly!” Laura chirps, and without a word Zaldamo levels Chad with a punch to the face. 

(Considering his fondness for punching schoolchildren, he should be glad he lives in the Wild (Upper Mid-)West.) 

“You keep your hands off her!” Almanzo snarls at Chad.

Laura bites his head off – a bit squeakily, perhaps, but adequately.

“He’s studying medicine, Mister Wilder,” she says angrily.

AMELIA: “Studying medicine”? In a one-room schoolhouse?

“He was just demonstrating how flexible the ribcage is!” she goes on.

WILL/DAGNY/AMELIA/DOUGLAS/LEE: [skeptical grunts, snorts and mutters]

Interestingly, you can see the moon rising outside.

Confused Zaldamo watches as she conveys the injured Chad away.

DAGNY: His hat is great. It really fits his character.

WILL: You’re always going on about this.

DAGNY: Well, it’s true.

Despite the moonrise, it’s still light when Almanzo returns the wagon to Pa.

Then he says he wants to talk about Laura.

DOUGLAS [as ALMANZO]: “Is she pure?”

Almanzo then has an extremely awkward conversation with Pa where he tries to explain his feelings for Laura.

DOUGLAS [as ALMANZO]: “You see, her boobies are no longer like skeeter bites.”

Manly shares the story about Chad Brewster.

AMELIA [as PA]: “What’d you do with the body?”

A-zo says it’s probably best for Pa to pick up Laura tomorrow instead of him, it being her birthday and all. (Laura’s birthday, February 7th, fell on a Thursday in 1884. But maybe Friday the 8th is a local holiday in Currie. It’s convenient if so, because if she had to teach Friday, Laura would never make it home in time for the church social.)

Almanzo leaves as Pa giggles at his frustration.

Back in Currie, Laura’s students give her a birthday present. (Chad Brewster’s face seems quite unbruised, considering he got a sock in the eye only the day before.)

AMELIA: Is it a cigar?

No, it’s a pen.

Laura is touched, and she thanks and blesses the class.

WILL: She becomes so boring when she “grows up.”

When Pa arrives, she says, “Almanzo didn’t want to come for me, huh?”

AMELIA [as PA]: “Oh, he’ll come for you.”

DOUGLAS: Ha ha, yeah, that’s the stuff!

On the way home, Laura and Pa discuss Zaldamo’s dumb damn hotheadedness, Pa telling another story from The Annals of Young Charles and Caroline’s Courtship. 

Laura remembers this one, in which Young Caroline was “making sheep’s eyes at another boy.”

DOUGLAS: “Making sheep’s eyes”? Does she mean for supper?

Whilst they’re on the subject of jealousy, Laura recalls the incident of Christie Norton Under The Big Top. (To his credit, Pa doesn’t burst out laughing.)

It dawns on Laura that Almanzo might be in love with her.

WILL: HO HUM!

(I’m sorry, I won’t do that again.)

Pa surprises Laura by blessing the match, on the condition that they wait until she’s eighteen to wed. (Many others have pointed out that Pa told Mary she could marry John when she was fifteen.)

(Then again, she and John were much closer in age. Pa’s must be a sliding age scale based on the specifics of the case.)

Pa then teases Laura by telling her Almanzo already asked somebody else to the dance, then reveals it was Eliza Jane.

Well, they make it in time for the big dance, which despite being a church social is hosted at Nellie’s.

There’s a woman on the porch talking to the Unknown Grovester. She isn’t played by Susan French, but she looks enough like her for me to say the character is Virginia Davenport.

No sign of Brewster. He and Tod must have killed each other in the end.

We see the dance-aholics Nels and Harriet Oleson are already on the floor. (In “Second Spring,” why didn’t they have their marital problems resolved through their mutual love of dance? It’s literally the only thing they enjoy doing together.)

D.L. Dawson is there, dancing with Mrs. Dorfler. (Camouflage, surely.)

The Alamo Tourist from Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure is there.

As is Not-Gelfling Boy, who’s dancing with Deepest Auburn. (Camouflage, surely.)

The Ingallses arrive, with Mary and Adam. (First time we’ve seen Mary since the . . . well, you know.)

Laura has a gold ribbon and flowers in her hair. (In February?)

Ma’s wearing Boobilicious 2.

Andrew Garvey is there, fooling around with Willie and Not-Art Garfunkel.

Not-The Kid From Just the Ten of Us is dancing with the Misbehaving Little Girl.

Having been dropped by the Gelfling, and perhaps realizing she brought the wrong date in the first place, the Girl With Hair of Deepest Auburn stares into the camera , rather fiercely.

The Girl Who Dresses Sort of Like Heidi is also there, and once again she is dressed sort of like Heidi, thank goodness.

Midsommar Kid, Prototype Shannen Doherty, blah blah blah. Who cares, right?

Wallflower Eliza Jane sits sadly on the sidelines.

AMELIA: Kind of a see-through top there, Eliza Jane.

Then, in my favorite part of the whole story, Albert comes and asks Eliza Jane to dance – to her great delight.

AMELIA: I love Albert. He’s totally the Roman of this show.

WILL: Yeah. I mean, except for murdering everybody.

Laura, meanwhile, finds Manly sitting at the back porch door.

WILL [as VICKI LAWRENCE]: He looked through the screen at the back porch door/And he saw Andy lyin’ on the floor/In a puddle of blood, and he started to shake. . . .

Manly apologizes for the Chad Brewster thing.

Unable to leave well enough alone, though, he jealously asks who brought her to the dance, but relaxes when she says Charles did.

Manly then gives Laura a birthday present. (Others have pointed out the wrapping paper is anachronistic, and I trust them.)

It’s a shawl that looks a bit like a Christmas tree skirt, but Laura likes it.

Goo-goo eyes galore, and Manly sighs, “Sweet Sixteen. . . .”

Then they kiss. Well, you knew it was gonna happen, folks.

AMELIA: Can they kiss in public? Wouldn’t they burn her at the stake?

The band strikes up a new dance tune.

DOUGLAS: Ah, “Waltzing Matilda.”

WILL: It’s “Beautiful Dreamer.”

DOUGLAS: Same thing.

Then Laura asks Manly to dance.

DOUGLAS: When did Michael Landon start turning into Bea Arthur?

And just when you think we’ve safely made it through another one, something unthinkable happens.

For Ma tells Pa she’s glad Laura’s got a man, because, and I quote, “I’m dying to call you ‘Grandpa’!”

AMELIA: Oh my God!

Pa giggles and says, “Same to you, Grammaw!” and they both crack up.

DAGNY: Oh my God 

LEE: What’s the matter?

AMELIA: Their only grandchild died, like, two episodes ago.

LEE: Oh my God.

Bum-Bum-Ba-Dum!

STYLE WATCH:

The lining in Laura’s heavy coat matches her new dress nicely.

DAGNY: That clock is cool. It looks like a bomb.

I thought it looked a little modern for the period, but apparently such designs were beginning to appear by the 1880s.

AMELIA: I love that dress of Laura’s.

WILL: Yeah, it’s iconic. It was in a museum in Tucson and got burned up in a fire.

AMELIA: Aw, that’s too bad.

DOUGLAS: Do you have a scrap of it?

DAGNY: Yeah, it’s a sacred relic, like one of Jesus’s toenails.

A dancing dude at the party wears an odd animal-hide vest. (Crocodile?)

Ma wears her huge infantilizing bow to the dance.

DAGNY: That’s a pretty snood on Eliza Jane.

Almanzo looks nice in his green plaid shirt at the party.

Charles appears to go commando again.

THE VERDICT: Essential, but fairly unbelievable. Your enjoyment will likely depend on your overall fondness for the Laura/Manly love arc. But I know it has its fans!

UP NEXT: “He Loves Me, He Love Me Not” (Part One)