A Haaaarrrrrvest of Friends; or
Harvey Equipment
(a recap by Will Kaiser)
Title: “Laura Ingalls Wilder” [sic]
Airdate: September 22, 1980
Written and directed by Michael Landon
SUMMARY IN A NUTSHELL: Zaldummo learns a lesson about cash on the barrel when he gets cheated on a land deal. But who cares about that, this one’s really about Eliza Jane falling in love with a wretched moron named Haaarrve, who doesn’t deserve her.
RECAP: Happy May Day (a little late)! Sumer is icumen in.
During Season Six, readers occasionally commented on a sort of creeping laziness from the Little House production team.
Nothing major, just small things we’ve mostly discussed, like having Nels go back to making fat jokes, or forgetting the Grove is full of blind people when the Reverend Danforth comes to town.
Eagle-eared reader Ben recently noted that Season Seven will feature more recycled music than before, due in part to a strike, not just laziness.
The reason I bring this up is that for the first time ever, the season premiere does not feature a new arrangement of the theme tune by David Rose.
It simply carries Season Six’s version forward (complete with the Carrie “pew!”).
WILL/DAGNY: PEW!
I consider it perhaps the most iconic arrangement, but who cares, right? We open today’s story with a masculine, horn-forward arrangement of “Ooey Gooey.”
(I wonder who the NBC horn player was? These scores are all pretty horn-forward. Whoever they were, they should get a bow at the end of the series, after they blow everything up, I mean.)
Almanzo wanders a dirt field with another man, who appears to be reading from a paper. (Is it a walking poetry slam like John Junior used to do?)
The music gets more and more elaborate (there’s a virtuoso solo on the bass guitar) as the two men stop by a buckboard parked in the middle of the field.
The non-Almanzo man looks like Gene Kelly. In fact, at first I wondered if maybe there was a Gene Kelly episode of Little House I somehow had missed up to this point.
But there isn’t. He’s actually an actor named Chris Shaffer, who wasn’t in much else, except for a TV Tammy Wynette biopic starring Annette O’Toole (of Cat People fame – rowr).
In this story, Shaffer is playing a guy named Matt Gray, who tells Almanzo that he’ll sell him the field, but he needs a bigger down payment.
Gray has a Yankee accent, and on consideration perhaps seems more like Peter Sellers doing an impression of Gene Kelly than like Gene Kelly himself.
DAGNY: I think he has more of an old-time Western look. Like, he must have been on Riptide, huh?
WILL: Riptide? You mean Rawhide?
DAGNY: Yeah, Rawhide – Michael Landon’s old show.
WILL: That was Bonanza.
DAGNY: Yeah, Bonanza.
(Chris Shaffer was never on Bonanza, but we must move on.)
Gray doesn’t seem like such a bad guy, saying he’ll take a promissory note instead of the $1,000 cash (about $34,000 today) he’s been asking for.
Enthusiastic about his prospects for a bumper crop, Almanzo gushes that it will be no problem! (No, obviously he doesn’t watch this show.)
Gray smiles warmly and they shake on it.
Next we see Zaldamo racing his wagon at far too high a speed through the thoroughfare.
He yells to Pa, who’s working at the Mill, and they make a dinner date.
In the schoolhouse, Laura is lecturing the class about math whilst Eliza Jane stands to the back of the room.
The other kids in the class include the AEK, the Non-Binary Kid, Carrie, Albert, Andrew Garvey, the Just the Ten of Us Kid, Not-Dagny and Not-Art Garfunkel.
Curiously, there’s also Not-Quincy Fusspot, who the last time we saw him, unless I’m wrong, had gone blind.
However, he must have been cured by Rev. Danforth, I suppose. (So at least one kid was.)
Or, it may be that he had circus-trick-accident-induced blindness, which of course is a temporary condition.
As for Laura herself, her hair is up. We can only see her back, but it’s clear they’ve dressed her like she’s about forty in this one.
DAGNY: Oh, don’t say that. I love that skirt.
Manly bursts in screaming that he’s got big news for Laura right away.
“Sis, can you let her go just this once, please?” he pleads in his gee-whiz affect.
Laughing, or laughingly perhaps, Eliza Jane allows it.
“Thanks, Sis! Come on, Beth!” Manly says, and drags Laura to the door.
Willie Oleson then does a hilarious Almanzo impersonation, crying, “Come on, Sue!”, grabbing some rando girl and dragging her to the door.
Arrested by Eliza Jane, he continues cheekily, “Sorry, Sis, I just got a little excited.”
Eliza Jane rolls her eyes (she may be suppressing a laugh) and sends him to the corner.
The Manlywagon roars through town again (westwardly), with Pa shouting to slow down for heaven’s sakes.
His string section trilling with excitement, David Rose ushers us back out to the dirty field.
Zaldamo runs around the field waving his arms and making the “someday, this will all be ours/yours!” sort of speech I feel like I’ve seen a million times in movies and on TV, including on this show.
Actually, Almanzo’s speech is less “someday this will all be ours!” than “this is ours right now!”
He says he thinks they should build a house overlooking the field, adding he’d never make such a big decision without consulting her.
Then he says he already made (and executed) the big decision of buying the property.
At first it isn’t clear how Laura’s going to react to this, but after a moment she seems to show genuine enthusiasm.
DAGNY: Gosh, her teeth look fantastic. They look better every year.
We cut then to the Little House Common Room and the iconic image of Laura sitting on Manly’s lap.
Ma and Pa are sitting with them, with Pa going over the land-sale paperwork. Seems the fine print reminds him of his dealings with Shifty O’Crafty and the oxen in Season One.
Almanzo says the land is so rich there’s no chance he could fail as a farmer.
Still skeptical, Pa brings up another Golden Oldie, the hailstorm that destroyed his crop in “100 Mile Walk.”
“One year out of seven,” Almanzo scoffs.
I have it as about 64 years in Little House Universal Time (LHUT) since “100 Mile Walk,” but never mind that for now.
What’s worth pointing out is that the crop was actually saved that year by the ingenuity of the Grovester womenfolk.
But Charles’s crop was destroyed at least two other times, once by a tornado and once by flooding.
Not to mention the unexpected non-weather events, like the economic war with the railroads that forced everybody to leave Minnesota in “‘As Long as We’re Together.’”
Additionally, you’ll recall how even in a good year, risks abound. The Farmers’ Guild once agreed to raise corn prices as a body because their fields had overproduced.
This scheme ultimately failed when Jud Lar[r]abee undercut the price, a development which, it’s implied, ruined everyone that year. (Except possibly Jonathan Garvey, to whom Lar[r]abee was legally ordered to pay restitution. But that’s another story.)
However you slice it, it adds up to at least four times Charles was wiped out, which if it’s only been seven years is not the greatest statistic.
(But if it’s been 64 years, not too bad!)
Pa doesn’t mention any of these other problems, just saying he can’t argue with it being a “fine piece of land.”
DAGNY [as ALMANZO]: “Yeah. It’s kinda like ownin’ a piece of your daughter!”
WILL: Would it be appropriate for Laura to sit on his lap like that? They’re not married yet.
DAGNY: I don’t know, maybe.
WILL: Come on, right in front of her parents?
DAGNY: I think it’s probably okay.
WILL: You’re joking.
Laura says, “Almanzo, how are you gonna work your land, work at the Feed and Seed -”
But Zaldamo interrupts and corrects her with “our land,” I guess to show what a gallant fucking gentleman he is.
“A fellow I met in Sleepy Eye named Harve Miller . . .” Almanzo says.
WILL/DAGNY [as ELIZA JANE]: “Haaaaaarrrrve . . .”
(I would guess Harve is no relation to Almanzo’s boss, Feed & Seed owner and local kingpin S.E. Miller, or I’m sure he would have mentioned it.)
Manly and Laura fondly recollect what a merry jester this Harve person is.
“Well,” Almanzo goes on, Harve “wanted to get out of the city” – presumably by this he means Sleepy Eye – “I told him there might be a job, [and] he jumped at it.”
WILL: Like, she’s sitting right on his dick!
DAGNY [laughing]: Yeah, but she’s not squirming on it. That would be too far.
So the upshot is, this Harve bozo who Manly knows from God knows where is taking his job at the Feed and Seed, and is going to “keep an eye on Sis’s place, too.”
At first this seemed odd to me, since Almanzo after all isn’t going to China to start his farm and could easily “keep an eye on Sis’s place” himself.
But the new property is west of town, the opposite direction of the original Wilder Farm. I suppose there would be a lot to do – horses to water, sheaves to bring in, and the like – and I can imagine caretaking arrangements being made.
DAGNY: So basically he traded his sister to Harve so he’d take his job? Is she feed or is she seed?
Anyways, Ma says, “Then everything’s all arranged!” and makes a goofy little joke in her strange Caroline way.
Charles then insists Almanzo join him for a man-to-man talk, an invitation Manly surely dreads by this point.
“I’ll put on another pot of coffee!” Ma says.
DAGNY: Great Ma writing, as always.
Laura and Ma have a nice little conversation where they bring the folks who missed the season finale up to speed.
(Since Pa said she and Almanzo could marry in a year, that puts us in the spring of 1884 in the M timeline.)
Ma and Laura reflect together on a conversation on the subject they had in “Back to School,” though in fact only Voiceover Laura mentioned “becoming Laura Ingalls Wilder” in that story.
Now I hate to go off the rails so soon into the story, but it’s just struck me: it’s pretty fucking weird that this show is still pretending to be the life story of Laura Ingalls Wilder at this point. Isn’t it?
So many bizarre and ludicrous inventions have been crammed into LIW’s real-life bio by now, they might as well not even have had her marry Almanzo at all.
I fully believe, if they had Laura run off with Daniel Page, or die in the fire, or marry Ebenezer fucking Sprague for crying out loud, Landon still wouldn’t have dropped the pretense that these are incidents from Wilder’s real life story.
Well, anyways, Laura pauses then, for she’s realized becoming a farm wife, though every woman’s highest ambition in life, means she will never teach again.
(Speaking of teaching, our own wonderful fledgling Amelia Kaiser was just offered her first real teaching job. We are bustin’ with pride. A-bustin’, even.)
We never find out what Pa’s heart-to-heart was about, because the next thing we see is the vomiting schoolhouse.
Inside, Willie’s in the corner again, or still.
DAGNY: Willie is getting to an age where he can attract girls. She shouldn’t put him in the corner anymore.
David Rose practices some piano scales in the pit, one of his signature moves to capture the concept of education musically. (Bringing in the harpsichord is another.)
Some sort of lanky galoot enters the classroom uninvited, startling Eliza Jane.
Blathering inanely, the man introduces himself as “Harve Miller.”
Harve, of course, is played by the popular and wonderful character actor James Cromwell. (Any disdain for Harve in this recap is directed at the character, not at Cromwell.)
Cromwell would get his big break in the movies, but before hitting it big, he was a hardworking TV actor doing bits on Little House and a zillion other shows like it, including Rockford, All in the Family, M*A*S*H, Three’s Company, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, Maude, Diff’rent Strokes, The White Shadow, Barney Miller (presumably no relation to Harve or S.E., haha), Father Murphy, Buffalo Bill with Dabney Coleman (I watched that with my grandma), Gimme a Break!, Night Court, Family Ties, Dallas, Knight Rider, Scarecrow and Mrs. King, China Beach, Mr. Belvedere, Life Goes On, Star Trek TNG and Deep Space Nine, and Home Improvement.
During that time, he also had roles in Murder By Death, The Man With Two Brains and Oh, God! You Devil (a fave of Dagny’s).
And he was in Revenge of the Nerds I, II, III, and IV. (That’s commitment.)
But in 1995 he made his biggest splash as the taciturn but kindly Farmer Hoggett, a shepherd who enlists a piglet as a sheepdog in Babe.
That movie was a phenomenon when it came out, and quite charming to boot. (He also did the sequel.)
After that, his career was no less busy, but a little more “prestige.” He played Queen Elizabeth’s husband Prince Philip opposite Helen Mirren in The Queen.
He was in the movies L.A. Confidential, The Green Mile, Secretariat, The Artist, Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron and several other worthy and/or award-nominated projects I don’t recognize because I stopped paying attention to movies in the aughts.
He played President George H.W. Bush (the first one) in Oliver Stone’s W. (a biopic of the second one).
He continued to be much in demand on TV, playing regular or recurring roles on ER, Angels in America, The West Wing, 24, American Horror Story, Boardwalk Empire (on which he played financier Andrew Mellon), The Young Pope, Julia (on which he was Julia Child’s mean father), and Succession.
He once played that leukemia-kid-helping sweetheart William Randolph Hearst, in RKO 281.
He was not above doing a little genre crapola now and then, appearing in Spider-Man 3, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, additional Star Trek movies (First Contact) and TV (Enterprise and Lower Decks), the 2004 version of Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot (the one with Rob Lowe), and Species II (worth a look).
The word “radical” gets thrown around a lot these days, but Cromwell really is one, having been arrested many times for activism around environmental and animal-rights issues.
For twenty years, he was married to Julie Cobb, the ex-Mrs. Victor French and star of fan fave episode “Money Crop.”
Finally, at 6’7”, he is apparently the tallest actor ever nominated for an Oscar. (The real question is, was he the tallest actor ever to win a Walnut Groovy Award? Tune in next spring to find out!)
Harve tells Eliza Jane he arrived sooner than he thought, and says Almanzo suggested he give her a ride home.
Interestingly, he pronounces Almanzo’s name correctly – Al-MAN-zo, rhymes with, I don’t know, garbage-CAN-zo. The first character on this show to do so, I believe.
When Eliza Jane thanks him, Harve chortles stupidly and says, “Think nothin’ of it, ma’am, just part of the deal.” (Eliza Jane looks confused, but apparently Almanzo does have some formal expectations of Harve per their agreement.)
DAGNY: What was their brother’s name again? It was something like “Hostess,” wasn’t it?
WILL: Perley Day.
DAGNY: Yeah, that’s it.
Well, Harve certainly seems nice, and he and Eliza Jane make to depart – completely forgetting Willie in the corner.
Willie reminds her he exists, and as he heads out the back door we get a glimpse of what’s behind the school! I mean, it’s nothing, but it’s one of the first times we’ve seen it!
“That boy!” Eliza Jane says with what sounds like affection. She’s the greatest.
As they walk out the other door, Eliza Jane tells Harve that Willie’s “main concern in school is making jokes.” (Solidarity, Willie.)
Harve laughs and says he was always put in the corner or given “whuppin’s” for his unserious approach to academics too.
“Then why on earth did you keep doing it?” Eliza Jane asks prissily.
Harve says being the class clown gets a person attention, and Eliza Jane says with annoyance, “So does studying harder than anyone else!”
DAGNY: Hot talk. What a seductress.
Harve gives her a pretty dismal look and says, “I s’pose.”
Eliza Jane comes off as stiff and obnoxious here (I relate to that too), but I “s’pose” she’s entitled to take the pro-studying side, given the shit she puts up with every day.
Then we get another example of a character starting a hilarious story offscreen, Toby Noe-style (“And I said, ‘It always has!'”), as we cut to the duo on their way home, and Eliza Jane is saying “Are you sure that’s a true story?” with a chuckle.
“True as an arrow from Robin’s bow!” Harve replies. (A Landonism, not a . . . folk expression.)
Harve confesses he exaggerated the species of feline, apparently the story’s main antagonist (just like Cat People!), and they laugh gaily.
Friendly Harve says to EJ, let’s make this a regular arrangement, since our respective quittin’ times are so synchronous. (Paraphrase.)
Things get weird, then, when Eliza Jane proposes they be on a first-name basis. (I can’t find my Miss Manners book, but I would think this would be odd, especially considering it’s the first time they’ve met. Dags dissents, though.)
(And Groveland is fairly socially relaxed for the period, as we’ve observed.)
Harve says he doesn’t know Eliza Jane’s name, which seems unlikely, since he was sent to fetch her. But, given he and Zaldamo are both idiots, it’s not impossible.
She tells him her name, and he seems to linger flirtatiously (or is he?), saying, “Well, I’ll see ya later . . . Eliza Jane.”
“See you later,” Eliza Jane, the casual language sounding strange coming from her, “Haaarve.”
(As we’ve already suggested, Lucy Lee Flippin’s pronunciation of Harve’s name, which elongates the vowel sound, almost as if she wishes it had two syllables or more, is unique.)
They’ve arrived at the Old Wilder Farm by now, and she heads inside.
DAGNY: This house is pretty richly decorated for a schoolteacher and a dirt farmer.
But quick as lightning, she springs to the window to creep on the departing Haaarve.
DAGNY: Are those her real glasses? I bet they are. They’re awfully thick for fakes.
WILL: The Bead’s were real.
That night, Manly and Eliza Jane are hanging out by the fire.
WILL: I like that they have an affectionate brother-sister relationship. Brothers and sisters tend to have strangely harmonious relationships on this show.
DAGNY: Well, not Nels.
The music here is nice. David’s brought in the harpsichord, but the style is rich and deep, and it looks somehow forward and somehow back, like Richard Strauss in his neoclassical period, or something.
Manly’s fallen asleep, so Eliza Jane wakes him and tut-tuts him up to bed.
But before he goes, she starts picking his brain about, you guessed it, Haaarve.
Almanzo says he and Harve are incredibly good friends who’ve known each other forever, which seems strange, because then wouldn’t Eliza Jane have met him already? (Have she and Almanzo not always lived together?)
Without going into the whole bobcat/mountain lion thing, Eliza Jane mentions his hilarious anecdotes, and Manly says, “That’s Harve.”
WILL: Oh, do you think this is where Häagen-Dazs got “That’s Dazs” from?
Then Eliza Jane, laughing lightly, says, “That’s what I call him.” It is, you will agree, a strange thing to say.
Although slumped in his seat and smiling hazily (is he stoned?), Almanzo detects the strangeness, saying, “What?” or possibly “Whuh?”
Eliza Jane looks emphatically at her brother and says she and Harve are calling each other by their Christian names.
Actually, I think Manly probably is stoned, because when she asks if he’s surprised, he just looks dazed for a moment, then says, “At what?”
“Who cares?” Almanzo says (paraphrase), and Eliza Jane tells him no one calls her by name, since to the town she’s “Miss Wilder” and to him (and Willie) she’s “Sis.”
Stupid Zaldamo clearly thinks she’s gone bonkers, and he asks if she’s okay. But she denies that anything is different.
As he leaves, she says “Goodnight, Almanzo” in a high, rather musical voice. Eliza Jane is a very mannered character, especially for this show – she kind of feels like a dropout from an Oscar Wilde play – but you have to admire the care Lucy Lee Flippin puts into making her unique.
But her uniqueness, or as some might put it her sheer weirdness, is curious in itself.
WILL: Why is she so different from them anyway? Is she really their sister? Or did they find a flamingo egg or something, and she hatched out of it?
Admit it – it’s hard to understand how a yokel, a fast-talking slickster, and a gooney bird with finishing school diction (and posture!) all grew up in the same house.
DAGNY: No, it’s quite easy to explain. They’re half-siblings. They have different mothers.
WILL: Different mothers?
DAGNY: Yeah, it makes sense. Eliza Jane is like fifteen years older than Almanzo, and Almanzo’s like ten years older than Hostess. Obviously there were three different mothers and the first two died.
Well, however she came to be, Eliza Jane now sits down at her desk and opens her diary. And suddenly we get Voiceover Eliza Jane!
Eliza Jane is only the third regular other than Laura to do a voiceover. The others are Mary, who narrated the bizarre Civil War apologia “The Aftermath” . . .
. . . and Albert, who got to do the closing narration when Isaac Singerman passed.
Eliza Janewrites, “I met a man today. His name is . . . Haaaarrve.”
(Voiceover Eliza Jane pronounces it the same as Regular Eliza Jane. I don’t know if that means she wrote it with extra letters.)
“He calls me,” she goes on, “Eliza Jane.”
WILL: I think this whole business about no one saying her name is quite believable.
DAGNY: I agree. It’s almost like her therapist brought it up and now she can’t stop thinking about it.
WILL: Well, another perceptive detail on Landon’s part. He knew the heart of woman!
DAGNY: I don’t know if I’d go that far.
Cut to the field, where Almanzo is a-plowin’, and David Rose is a-sweepin’ and a-swoopin’ and a-lettin’ it all hang out.
Back to town, then (Mustache Man and Not-Richard Libertini are driving by in the background), where inside the school, Eliza Jane and Forty-Year-Old Laura are having a serious talk.
Eliza Jane gets embarrassed and tries to leave before she’s even said what she’s talking about, but Laura stops her and reminds her that not only is this Walnut Grove, where everyone tells everyone everything, but soon they will be sisters-in-law.
Eliza Jane says, “I feel so silly, a woman of my age asking a woman of your age . . .”
DAGNY [as ELIZA JANE, desperately]: “Can you call me Eliza Jane???”
(Melissa Gilbert was sixteen when they filmed this, and Laura the character would be approaching seventeen or just past it, since her sixteenth birthday was in the spring of 1883.)
(Lucy Lee Flippin was thirty-six or thirty-seven when this was filmed – indeed, pretty old to find a husband at this point, if it were the 1880s.)
Eliza Jane is asking for romantic advice, of course. “How did you get my brother to notice you?” she asks, though since she was Almanzo’s confidante through that whole business, you’d think she’d know.
WILL [as LAURA]: Well first, you get yourself two apples . . .
“I’ve driven home with Mr. Miller – Haaaarrve – every day for weeks now,” she says. (So we must be coming up on summer soon.)
Then Eliza Jane says she wants to jump Haaarve’s bones, pretty much! “He’s always so nice and friendly,” she says, “. . . and I just don’t want to be nice and friendly.”
DAGNY: Whoa, Eliza Jane!
WILL: Yeah, that’s spicy stuff for her.
“And I don’t know what to do,” she continues with quiet desperation. (Flippin, who’s been a scene stealer since joining the cast, and who already scored an acting Groovy for “The Werewolf of Walnut Grove,” shines even more brightly than usual in this one.)
Laura reassures her that she shouldn’t be embarrassed. You can tell she’s quite thrilled to get this gossip, in fact. Ha!
WILL: Does Laura teach her how to seduce Harve, like Cyrano de Bergerac?
DAGNY: Yeah, or at least give her a makeover?
Laura assumes Eliza Jane’s had her share of men . . . but Eliza J gently interrupts her, saying, “Wrong – very wrong.”
She says she’s never even been kissed.
DAGNY: Wow. A true virgin marm, observed in the wild.
DAGNY: Yeah. Does Laura practice kissing with her?
“I’ve never even danced with anyone,” she says, “except your brother Albert.”
WILL: Yes, that was a nice moment.
Laura says Almanzo is shy –
DAGNY: Zaldamo? No he’s not!
– and so that’s probably Eliza Jane’s problem too. All she needs to do is “force yourself not to be shy!”
She suggests inviting Harve over for supper, which seems reasonable enough.
(Where is Harve living? The hotel? Also, now that there’s a hotel, do they still rent the rooms over the Post Office? Or did Doc convert the whole upstairs into a townhome? He inherited the building from Mr. Hanson, if I recall.)
Laura says probably Harve’s madly in love with her and is just waiting for her to ask him out. (In this time period? Sure, Laura. The plot in this one is a little Love Boat–y, with Laura as the Julie McCoy.)
“Only one way to find out!” Laura says.
DAGNY: See, this is the Charles in her.
WILL: Yeah. It’s also Reverend-Alden-level bad advice.
DAGNY: Well, she learned from some world-class meddlers.
Laura pushes and pushes . . . and then suddenly they realize Harve’s been standing in the doorway the whole time!
Actually, not the whole time. He’s such an idiot, he’d never be able to pretend he didn’t hear, and since he gives no indication he did hear, he presumably just stepped in.
Laura says she’ll finish up in the classroom, and nudges Eliza J to push off with Haaaarrve.
An oboe, seemingly filled with longing, pipes Eliza Jane gently from the room. (The tune is a bit like “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You” and a bit like “Someday at Christmas.”)
Once in Harve’s wagon (Harvey the Love Bug? no, that doesn’t quite work, does it), Eliza Jane immediately asks if he’s shy, but he laughs and says no way.
(The “clumsy clueless nerd-girl falls in love” plot is also very “eighties sitcom,” if you prefer that to the umpteenth Love Boat comparison. I’m reminded of an episode of Gimme a Break! in which Julie gets rid of her glasses to try to attract a boy. (Not Julie McCoy, the name is just a coincidence.))
Laughing like a goddam fool, Harve goes, “Why’dja ask!”
Deflated, or perhaps crestfallen is a better word since she’s so birdlike, Eliza Jane says “No reason,” and after giving her a look, Harve drives on.
Meanwhile, some boys are playing in the schoolyard. Yep, Not-Quincy Fusspot can definitely see again.
DAGNY: I loved seesaws that spun like that. They were pretty rare by the time we were kids.
WILL: Well, I’m sure kids got beheaded.
Arriving at the Old Wilder Farm, Harve asks if Eliza Jane’s mad for some reason.
He says she’s been quiet, not even bringing up her two favorite subjects, “Willie gettin’ in trouble” and “Albert doin’ so good.” (Good grief.)
He seems genuinely worried he’s offended her, but Eliza Jane dismisses the idea.
WILL: Why doesn’t he understand? Is he really that stupid?
DAGNY: No. It’s that he doesn’t find her attractive, so he doesn’t see her as a person. He’d never in a million years think about her feelings. She’s just a dried-up old spinster.
WILL: Wow. That is a cold analysis.
Harve says the weather being dry, he’s going to fetch some water for her flowers. (This is important foreshadowing, so pay attention!)
Then Eliza Jane asks if Harve “ever has supper,” and he answers “’Most every night!” with dopey jollity. You can see why he and Zaldamo are friends.
Eliza J quickly invites Harve to have dinner there tonight, and rushes into the house.
A trombone takes up the “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of Harve” melody as Eliza J sits down and gasps for breath.
In a poignant touch, she pulls out her diary and makes a note of that very fact. (Like many Little House stories, this one is more emotionally impactful when you know what’s coming, but I won’t spoil things.)
Next we see Forty-Year-Old Laura running through the thoroughfare with a letter.
She pops into Nellie’s, I mean Caroline’s, where Mrs. Oleson is nursing Nellie through some minor illness.
Rushing to the kitchen, she hands the letter to Ma, who exclaims, “You’ve been awarded a teaching position at Radnor!”
We’ve never heard of “Radnor” before, but Ma reacts like it’s a very big deal. Is it a fancy girls’ school, like Eastland on The Facts of Life? Or a university? Where? In Mankato?
Changing suddenly, Ma says, “But you’re not going to take it. You cahn’t.” She doesn’t explain what she means.
But Laura seems to need no explanation, saying no, but it’s nice to be asked.
“I could have been a good teacher, Ma,” Laura says, and Ma replies, “I know.” For a minute I was worried she was going to go off into her own private world of depression like she did the last time she talked about giving up teaching to become a farm wife, but she doesn’t.
With idiotic confidence to rival Laura’s, Charles’s, and Rev. Alden’s, then, Ma says she’s sure Almanzo will be delighted and Laura should run show him the letter.
(Actually, considering how the story develops in Part Two, this may be more cunning than idiotic on Ma’s part. But let’s not get ahead.)
Back in the dining room, Nellie is on the verge of vomiting.
Harriet nastily posits that the Jewish food she’s now eating is making her sick.
She compares Percival’s diet to that of her other least favorite demographic group, cannibals.
Nellie pushes back, but Harriet goes on to give individual reviews of matzah and kreplach. (“It sounds like the person who named it was gagging!” she argues logically.)
Then she says she’s taking Nellie straight to Doc Baker. (The biology majors amongst you may see where this is going.)
Then it’s back to “Ooey Gooey,” as Laura stands by the roadside to catch Almanzo as he drives home.
But Manly is displeased, saying, “I just don’t know why you applied.”
Laura says she doesn’t plan to take the job, but says the letter is validating nevertheless. “I worked hard to get my teaching certificate!” she says.
WILL: Worked hard? She answered, like, two questions about Thomas Jefferson.
Very quickly, Almanzo turns into Jonathan Garvey in “What is that, some kinda remark?” mode.
He tells Laura under no circumstances will she be working, and when she says, “My ma works,” he says, “I know. That may be all right with your pa, but it’s not all right with me.”
Laura seems surprised by this sudden invocation of Tradwife Law, but doesn’t give him an ass-kicking or anything, unfortunately.
DAGNY: I remember watching this as a kid. I did NOT like this. This was my nail in the coffin for liking him. He is a bad boyfriend. It’s preposterous that a strong woman like Laura would be attracted to a man like this.
I’m not sure I agree, human nature being what it is.
DAGNY: He’s like the Mr. Big of this show.
Almanzo smirkily says he’s sorry, and they take off – Laura dropping her letter into the road as they go!
DAGNY: Oh my God!
WILL: I know, littering.
DAGNY: I don’t care about the littering, it’s that she’s giving up. She’s littering her dreams away!
Meanwhile, in Doc’s waiting room, Mrs. Oleson is reading Gray’s Anatomy (1858), a text she seems to find quite engaging.
DAGNY: Ha! I love that.
Doc pops through his green curtain, and Mrs. O starts haranguing him about “the reading material you keep in your office.”
“The reading material is on the table,” Doc says dryly. “This is a medical book, which you took from my desk.” HA! There’s a curious thread of humor running through this script.
Nevertheless, Mrs. Oleson says, if that’s the sort of filth that passes for medical literature, she’ll make sure Willie never becomes a doctor.
Doc waits a beat and replies, “I’m sure that will be best for all concerned.” HA!!! I love Kevin Hagen when he’s in this mode.
DAGNY: Doc’s eyes are pretty red. Was he up all night delivering a calf?
WILL: Well, he does have that new boyfriend.
The rest of the scene has Mrs. O assuming that Nellie’s got a fatal disease, only to learn that she’s actually pregnant. Harriet keels over when she learns the truth.
DAGNY: Harriet’s not this stupid.
The scene is “a bit much,” to borrow the phrase a Redditor used to describe Walnut Groovy. But it’s also funny, especially if you’ve got a soft spot for this show, and, well, obviously I do.
Nellie is apparently due in six months. (Perfectly respectable, since she and Percival married in the fall.)
Commercial break.
DAGNY: Is that really MC Hammer? He looks great.
WILL: I think it’s gotta be. They wouldn’t use a fake Hammer.
Next we join the Wilders and Harve at dinner.
Almanzo and Harve, who both seem drunk and yet I think aren’t, are musing upon an anecdote, the gist of which is they pranked a woman using ketchup to make her believe Harve was bleeding to death. (I hate ketchup, but love the idea.)
DAGNY: So basically she’s in love with Willie Oleson.
Eliza Jane, who as much as I adore her could stand to consult Doc Baker herself about the stick up her ass, can’t get into the conversation.
Manly tries to continue the story, but Eliza Jane suddenly screams over the laughter, “Perhaps Mr. Miller could tell me outside!”
DAGNY: This whole episode gives me ulcers. My stomach is just boiling with acid.
Despite his idiocy, Harve has a logical reaction to this, which is to assume Eliza Jane means he’s overstaying his welcome.
Eliza Jane protests that that isn’t what she meant, and when Almanzo says he’ll walk Harve out to say goodnight, she says, “Almanzo! Why don’t you put on some wood for a fire? I’ll walk out with Haaaaarrrve.”
Zaldimmo, who must be completely clueless to miss the point after the whole “call me by my name” business, stares in bafflement.
As Harve walks out, Almanzo says it’s awfully hot to make a fire, but Eliza Jane grins with antici . . . pation as she says, “Just do it.”
(Her enthusiasm is heartbreaking, but, again, only if you know where the story’s going; so if you don’t, please don’t worry about it.)
Eliza Jane follows Harve out . . . first removing her glasses. (You see? Just like Gimme a Break!)
Actually, of course, a better point of reference for this is “Four Eyes,” in which Stupid Mary similarly stupidly ditches her eyewear because she’s worried about pleasing men.
Fortunately – well, maybe “fortunately” isn’t the word considering where that thread led – in that story she is set straight by no less an authority than the Bead, who doesn’t tell Mary so much as demonstrate that corrective lenses need not forestall the joys of the flesh.
But Eliza Jane does not know this, of course.
Outside, Harve is rhapsodizing about the country air, and Eliza Jane asks him to assist her down the stairs, probably in equal measure to be close to him and because she’s blind as a bat. (Sorry, blind characters, and readers too of course – I mean no offense. In fact, I’ll be sure the phrase “blind as a bat” is not included in The Walnut Groovy Omnibus when it’s published in Braille translation.)
Eliza Jane, who couldn’t possibly care about the ketchup story’s outcome, now asks Haaarrve to pray continue the hilarious anecdote.
Apparently the pranked woman, “Miss Mabel Harkins” (accompanied by her “fella”), fainted when she saw The Resurrected Haaarrve, after first going “Brr! Brr!” (Maybe it’s best that we don’t hear his “funny stories” verbatim, if this one is representative.)
The story ended tragically, since Miss Harkins, apparently no fan of idiocy, ghosted Harve shortly afterward.
Eliza Jane tells Haaarrve he should stop “acting crazy all the time,” saying she’d still like him if he did.
As a come-on, this isn’t much better than “So does studying harder than anyone else!”, but Haaarrve seems to appreciate it.
Then he notices her missing glasses. For as much as “‘Back to School’” made fun of her looks, Lucy Lee Flippin of course was a very lovely woman, and she looks it here. (Ted did the moonlight in this instance.)
Haaarrve also compliments her eyes, which on the one hand is wonderful (I assume he means it), but on the other is riding straight into a danger zone, which he’d have to be an idiot not to understand.
But of course, he is an idiot, so off he goes, promising to have supper with her again the following Sunday.
Fairly preposterously, Eliza Jane can’t find her way ten steps back to the front door, and has to scream for help from Almanzo.
Almanzo says it’ll be fun seein’ Harve again on Sunday, but Eliza J, spinning her web, says he should just plan to dine at Casa dell’Ingalls, as he usually does.
Almanzo shrugs and says, “Goodnight, Eliza.”
DAGNY: Her name. That’s a nice touch.
Then she heads straight back to her diary.
DAGNY [as VOICEOVER ELIZA JANE]: “His name . . . is Hhhhhaaaaaaaarrrrrve.”
They say it’s possible to get addicted to writing, which is one reason I’ve never kept a diary myself. (Also because whenever I’ve tried, usually at the behest of a therapist, I found I only write horrible things about myself. Fortunately, writing horrible things about an old TV show instead seems to help with this.)
WILL: You know, something just occurred to me: Why does Almanzo buy the new property at all? He already OWNS a farm! Why would he buy another plot on credit and incur the expense of building a house there? Wouldn’t it make much more sense for Laura to just move in with him and Eliza J once they’re married?
DAGNY: No, I understand it. He doesn’t want Laura to feel crammed in with Eliza Jane.
WILL: Crammed in? Laura grew up with five or six people in a single room! She’s been rooming with Albert for the past two years, you think she’s gonna mind Eliza Jane being across the hall?
Speaking of Albert, back at the Little House, he emerges from puberty.
Albert says he upset Laura by saying it’ll be nice to have the loft apartment to himself when she marries Almanzo.
Ma, who knows what she’s really upset about, goes up to talk to her. “I was only jokin’,” Albert says.
“Oh, I know that,” Pa says. “Because when Laura gets married and leaves, we’re moving Carrie up in the loft with you.” HA!
But seriously, I’m surprised they haven’t moved her up already, given she’s at least ten years old. And is Grace still in a bassinet? For as many scenes as are set there, Ma and Pa’s bedroom remains something of a mystery to us here in the audience.
Upstairs, Ma brushes Laura’s hair, and without prompting, starts talking about how she left her own teaching job when she married Pa.
WILL: We never hear murmuring from downstairs when there are people in the loft, or vice versa. It’s a surprisingly soundproof design for a single room.
Ma explains, in her trademark way that’s depressing and yet strangely comforting, that growing up and making a family means letting some dreams go.
Ignoring the overwhelming gender power imbalance of their time, Ma says Pa probably gave up some dreams too. Like, maybe he always wanted to go to the Caribbean, or something.
But in the end, Ma says, it’s all worth it, because you have kids and get all these new fascinating relationships which make life fun. (Luck of the draw there, though, Caroline.)
Ma says without her sacrifices, none of them would even exist. (Paraphrase.)
She includes Albert in that category, despite the fact that if it weren’t for them, he’d be alive and well in Winoka and would never have murdered anyone.
Ma then makes an eloquent little speech then, a sort of defense of motherhood:
But don’t worry – you’ll be a teacher. . . . A mother is all things: A cook, a dressmaker, a disciplinarian, a nurse. But above all, a teacher.
And I know that when your children are ready to graduate from your family, they’ll be as ready to face the world as you are.
I know they will.
The two embrace – it’s a lovely moment for Grassle.
Not everybody liked it, though.
WILL: You don’t look happy.
DAGNY: No. This kind of thing always pissed me off as a kid.
WILL: The defense of tradwifery?
DAGNY: Yeah. Well, I think it’s because my mom and my grandma always worked. The working women of Winnipeg hated this story.
We cut then to church. It appears Rev. Alden can put another notch in his lipstick case.
In an odd moment, Aldi wishes a happy 86th birthday to an elderly lady we’ve never seen named “Elvira Hornquist.” (Meaning she was born in 1798!)
Mrs. Hornquist is sitting next to Not-Richard Libertini, who turns and smiles at her. (His mother?)
Then Aldi congratulates Nellie and Percival on expecting a baby.
Percival is actually there in church. I’m pretty sure this would not have flown at this time in most Christian parishes; but as we’ve noted before, Groveland’s social mores are pretty relaxed for the times.
Since the death of Mr. Singerman in 1881-I, we haven’t met any other Jewish characters, so presumably Percival is on his own now. (Presumably Albert could have made the connections for Percival if any were still in town, being tight with the community.)
Nevertheless, Rando Sue gives the couple a skeptical, possibly antisemitic look.
“It seems just yesterday, Nellie was a baby,” the Rev goes on, implying that Nellie was born in Walnut Grove, or at least was still an infant when the family moved here. (Previously we pinpointed TV Nellie’s birthdate to June 14, 1864, so we can assume the family came to town somewhere around that time. See Oleson Family History.)
We see Mrs. Oleson grinning at his words, but then he mentions she’ll soon be a grandmother, and she faints again (offscreen).
Rev. Alden looks up to God and rolls his eyes. I wouldn’t be too judgmental, Aldi. I remember a certain clergyman publicly fainting not so very long ago!
After church, everybody disembarks. Caroline, interestingly, comes out chatting another Caroline-type woman we’ve never seen before.
Pa and Almanzo goof on Mrs. Oleson for a while, then Manly invites (Glazed-Carrot) Laura to come take a look at the property with him. He says he needs to check some irrigation ditches he’s dug.
Laura pulls a Ma, saying he shouldn’t work on a Sunday.
But ultimately she says she’s going to help Ma with the cooking instead. “We’ll have supper in two hours!” she calls. “Don’t be late!”
Since it can only be eleven or twelve o’clock now, that seems early for supper; but some families in America do large mid-afternoon meals on holidays and special occasions. I like the custom myself.
Asshole Zaldamo complains about how bossy Laura is. “Humorously,” of course.
Then we see a black and white cow at the Old Wilder Farm. A regular Holstein of the sort common here in real life? Hard to say, but we’ll give it the benefit of the doubt.
Inside, Eliza Jane is harassing an embarrassed-looking Haaarrve about the quality of the lemonade she’s served him. She says she prefers it on the tangy side herself.
DAGNY [as ELIZA JANE]: “You know what else tastes tangy?”
Eliza Jane then cosies up to him on the settee, her face taking on a sharklike look.
Well, the conversation is very awkward. Haaarrve, who’s quite nice as always, says he isn’t accustomed to making conversation with ladies.
Eliza Jane says that’s a perfectly natural way to feel.
WILL: Do they come from money? That would explain all the bibelots.
DAGNY: Yeah, probably Eliza Jane’s mom was rich. But now the money’s run out.
The two acknowledge to each other that having a normal conversation is difficult for them both. (Paraphrase.)
Then they have a little poetic conversation about the things they might hear if they stopped talking altogether.
DAGNY: Does SHE get pregnant now?
(By the way, the two actors have terrific chemistry, don’t they?)
Eliza Jane suggests she put on a record, since she’s “got a Victrola.” (The Victrola brand wasn’t in use yet, though; in fact, the company wouldn’t even be incorporated until 1901.)
She puts one on.
WILL: If it’s “Beautiful Dreamer,” I’m gonna scream.
Nope – it’s a Viennese waltz.
Eliza Jane tells Harve she’s an accomplished dancer who’s studied privately.
WILL: This is just like when that Irishwoman was throwing herself at Nels.
Then she forces him to dance with her. It’s actually pretty uncomfortable.
DAGNY: Does Manly come in and punch him out?
The camera zooms in on the record, then, but unfortunately I can’t make out the label.
Next we see Almanzo arriving at the Little House.
He’s very upset, because Gray, the man who sold him the property, has dammed the Creek and cut off the water supply to Almanzo’s irrigation ditches.
He says Gray has even placed an armed guard at the dam.
Pa suggests they head out to Gray’s place for a chat, noting that the guy is new to the Grove.
And hey presto, here we are.
DAGNY: Ooh, you know this is gonna be a fight scene. Landon loves staging fight scenes in barns.
Almanzo demands to know why “the South Fork” has been dammed. (The location of the New Wilder Farm is off our map.)
Gray says he just decided to.
WILL: He kind of looks like Haven Hamilton.
Charles says perhaps Mr. Gray could just share some of the water with them. But, talking like a character in an old Stephen King movie – a nice touch, since he’s meant to be a newcomer – he just says, “Not easy being a fahmah.”
Gray says on the other hand, he’d be happy to buy the property back – for a tenth of the amount Almanzo’s on the hook for.
WILL [as DANIEL PLAINFIELD]: “I DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE!!!”
(Gray is quite creepy, isn’t he?)
Almanzo attacks Gray, but Charles pulls them apart, calms Manly down, and takes him outside.
DAGNY: No fight?
In his memoir Prairie Man, Dean Butler writes filming this scene nearly culiminated in a fight between himself and Michael Landon.
Apparently Butler ignored Landon’s direction on what to do when Charles pulls Manly off Gray, and after multiple attempts Landon threw Butler across the room in anger.
Certainly Butler’s book is worth reading. He’s wary of being needlessly critical – but this and other stories reveal a dark side of Landon, one slightly different from the various portraits in the other cast memoirs.
Anyways, then Charles says casually, “Why don’t you wait here, I’m gonna ask him one question.”
DAGNY: Oh my God, of course.
WILL: Yeah, heh heh heh.
With a chickencrap grin, Charles has a nice little conversation with Mr. Gray, then beats the crap out of him.
“And ya know when he’s gonna sell you that crop for a hundred dollars? When Hell freezes over!” he says Harrison Ford-ly.
(That expression may or may not have been around by this time.)
Then off they go, and that’s it. Bum-Bum-Ba-Dum.
WILL: Kind of a weak cliffhanger.
DAGNY: I don’t know. There’s a lot up in the air.
STYLE WATCH: Carrie has her hair done in braids, Laura-style.
Andy, though we barely see him, has grown a foot, has a new hairstyle, and is unrecognizable.
Not-Quincy Fusspot wears a fedora cocked at a roguish angle.
Dagny liked Harve’s houndstooth-and-orange ensemble.
Charles appears to go commando again.
NOTE: Neither Mary nor Adam nor the Garvey Kendall School is seen or mentioned.
THE VERDICT: Tune in next time for it. (I will say Flippin and Cromwell are fantastic, though. I think there’s no harm in that.)
UP NEXT: “Laura Ingalls Wilder” (Part Two)
Walnut Groovy 