The Award 1/5

1974 – Burning the midnight oil preparing for a school contest, Mary causes a fire, and Caroline orders her to withdraw.

Hallmark was nice enough to cycle back to the beginning of the series. Now maybe we can pinpoint where exactly things went off the rails.

This episode starts with a voiceover from Laura about how Pa doesn’t travel all that often but that he would be gone for three weeks. I guess Michael Landon had a Bonanza reunion tour that he couldn’t reschedule. Anyway, we see a wagon driving away as the girls yell their goodbyes to Pa and Mr. Edwards. We don’t actually see the men and it is the last we’ll be not seeing them this episode. Caroline tells Laura and Mary that they will be late for school, so the two of them run inside the house to grab their things.

We see the girls walking to school and Laura is dawdling. Mary tells her to hurry up but Laura says she is looking for something. They argue about this for a bit, eventually working around to Laura making fun of Mary for being overly studious. The girls finally make it to the school and are rather late. Miss Beadle is in the middle of telling the class about a scholarship award contest when she pauses to allow the Ingalls girls to take their seats. Mary apologizes before Miss Beadle continues. The scholarship award is given to the student who gets the highest score on a special exam. Sort of like Mathcounts, but less socially retarded. Before you get offended, I did make it to the state level in 8th grade, so I know what I’m talking about. Anyway, the award this year has been upgraded from a ribbon to a leather-bound Webster’s Dictionary. Nice improvement, school board. The kids in the class “ooh and ahh” politely but Mary looks at it as if the book was the Holy Grail. Miss Beadle comments that she expects there to be increased interest in the exam due to the prize, but her words sort of fade into the background as we get a close up of Mary looking at the book. She doesn’t blink.

As the girls walk home from school it is now Mary who is dawdling. She is studying a history text that Miss Beadle loaned her in preparation for the exam. Laura scoffs at this, commenting that history is nothing but stories about dead people. How meta. Inside the house, Caroline is ironing as she helps Carrie with her ABC’s. The girls arrive and Caroline reminds them to close the door as she asks about their day at school. Mary shows Ma the book she borrowed and they marvel at it. Laura asks if she can go fishing after her chores, but Ma tells her that she can still study even though she doesn’t have homework. Laura goes outside to start the chores and Caroline stresses closing the door again.

That night, Laura is trying and failing to sleep. Mary is reading the book and the light is keeping Laura awake. Mary says she can’t read without the light and Laura tells her that she should be sleeping instead of reading anyway. Mary rolls her eyes and blows out the lamp. She crawls into bed with Laura. Later on we see that Mary still can’t sleep, so she sneaks out of bed and takes the book downstairs. Mary lights a lantern and goes into the stable to read some more. A harpsichord starts to play a theme highlighting Mary’s studious nature/nerdiness. The camera zooms in on the binding and I can only assume it is from the cameraman dozing off.

We then cut to the flame of the lantern resting on a stool as Mary is resting on a pile of straw. In typical Little House fashion, dozing Mary rolls over and kicks the stool knocking the lantern to the straw covered ground. The horse looks over to see what’s up and grunts in concern. The horse is at a loss for words as the nerdiness theme takes a minor key. Mary curls up under the blanket because the fire is making her colder? The camera zooms in on the horse, which never looks good, and it finally whinnies out a warning. This wakes up Mary who stands up and just looks at the fire. She creeps out of the barn, grabs a rake and rolls the still flaming lantern into a bed of fresh straw. You know, if it wasn’t for the fact that I am trying to get a variety of characters and situations covered in this blog I would seriously consider renaming this “Mary Ingalls Sucks at Life”.

Anyway, a new fire starts up and this causes Mary to run to the house to get Ma. Mary runs back to the stable but Ma pulls her away as soon as she catches up to her daughter. “Buckets!” Ma screams. “Draw water from the creek!” Ma runs into the burning stable to evacuate the horse and cow. Jack the dog just sits nearby and supervises. Thanks pooch. Caroline grabs one of the buckets and tosses the water on the flames. After she empties both buckets, she grabs the blanket Mary was using and starts beating down the flames. That fire doesn’t stand a chance once Caroline Ingalls brings da pain. The fire is mostly out when the girls return with the buckets, but Ma throws the water down just to make sure there are no flare ups.

Mary slinks away a few feet as Ma catches her breath. Mary is crying as she starts to apologize but Caroline has an icy tone to her voice when she says “Sorry is not enough.” Laura is watching with a look that indicates that this is about to get really good really fast. Ma asks what happened and Mary explains that she was studying and didn’t want to wake her up. Caroline takes a moment to process this before she loses her temper. “How many times have I told you not to light matches or lanterns in the barn?!” Mary’s weeping reply: “Hundreds.” Mary Ingalls Sucks at Life. This infuriates Caroline further and she tells Mary that she is not allowed to take the exam and that Mary is to tell Miss Beadle tomorrow morning. Laura meekly points out that tomorrow is Saturday, which doesn’t really defuse the situation. Caroline sends the girls back to bed.