Silent Promises 5/5

It’s nighttime at the Ingalls’ homestead and Albert is still working his sales pitch on Bandit. The dog is looking it over but isn’t convinced. It’s a buyer’s market, Albert, deal with it. Pa comes outside to tell Albert to go to bed. Albert gets five more minutes to make the sale and decides to imitate a dog going into the dog house. You know what border collies don’t respond to? That. As Albert goes into the house making dog noises, the sound guys decide a cavernous echo is the way to go which would not really work as a selling point for me. It doesn’t work for Bandit either.

Sunrise on the prairie as Charles leaves the house looking for Albert. It turns out the kid fell asleep inside the dog house. Oh dear. Caroline comes outside asking if either of the guys had seen Laura, but no one knows her whereabouts. Pa goes for a walk and finds Laura sitting in the woods. She’s wondering what to do about the whole Daniel situation. Although she doesn’t love Daniel the way he loves her, Laura wants to know if she should live her life to make him happy. Y’know: settle. “Sharing your life with someone is fine,” Pa says, “but you gotta love ‘em.” Laura wants to know how she can express this without hurting Daniel. Yeah, it doesn’t quite work that way, unfortunately. Laura predicts that Daniel will ultimately give up his studies, but Pa says that is Daniel’s own fault if he quits out of spite.

Daniel is studying in the main room when Laura arrives. She apologizes about leading him on with the whole ring wearing thing. “I wanted you to learn, but not for me, for you,” she signs. She leaves out the part about him being too young for her. Daniel is being stubborn about it, but Laura removes the ring and gives it back to him. He tears up his manual and turns his back on Laura. She leaves.

Nathan returns and sees the torn manual and ring on the table. He goes to Daniel’s room to see what is going on. Daniel signs that Laura lied and his father asks why. When Daniel doesn’t offer an answer, Nathan explains that Laura lied because she felt sorry for Daniel. Before I can object to this, Nathan goes on to say that he was doing the same thing by keeping Daniel away from people to protect him. Now that they see the error of their ways, Daniel should continue learning. Nathan goes on to say that Daniel is no longer getting special treatment since he can now be treated like any other child. They hug. Aw.

Back at the Ingalls, Caroline climbs up to the loft to check on Laura who is feeling sorry for herself. Daniel shows up during the pep talk to speak with Laura. He brought his manual and apologizes. He asks her to be his teacher again and Laura agrees. They go outside while Ma and Pa hug. Laura then does a voiceover musing about teaching and the importance of education. Hopefully her words don’t fall on deaf ears. What?