Bully Boys 2/5

Recess! The girls are in a circle playing a game involving bouncing a ball towards one another. I think it might be dodgeball fueled by estrogen instead of testosterone so it's very low key. Bubba is over by the school building observing this game and seems annoyed by what he’s watching. He walks over and grabs the ball and tells the girls how to play the game for realsies. He promptly beans an 8-year-old in the face and she falls like a sack of potatoes. As physical comedy goes that’s gold. The music sting and Laura seem to disagree with this assessment. Laura checks on the girl then walks over to Bubba and tells him that you have to bounce the ball first. “What’s it to you, pee-wee?” he sneers. That’s “Half-pint”, buster. Laura tells him someone could get hurt playing his way and they get into an argument about the merits of whatever “sissy” game is being played. Laura tries to take the ball back, but Bubba knocks her to the ground. Mary runs over to her sister and tries to hold her back from fighting with the boy. Bubba laughs at this but once Mary calms down Laura she heads over to confront the boy. “You’re older and bigger,” she tells him, “that’s why we have rules so the little ones don’t get hurt.” Bubba’s rebuttal: punching Mary across the face. “Well that’s my rule,” he says to Mary as she lies on the ground. Not cool, dude. The bell starts to ring as Mary “Glass Jaw” Ingalls holds her hand to her eye. Bubba also warns Mary not to go “snitchin’” to Miss Beadle.

That evening at the homestead, Charles comes home from work as Caroline and Carrie are exiting the barn. Carrie goes to greet Pa in that robotic way she has and they have an in-depth conversation about milking. Charles apologizes for being late because he had to complete the Galender delivery. As Caroline finishes preparing dinner, Mary is icing her eye up in the loft. She asks Laura if the shiner looks any better, but Laura is too engrossed in her homework to answer. Mary asks Laura not to say anything to Pa. The girls go downstairs for supper. Pa is washing up and asks the girls about their new schoolmate since the older Galenders mentioned their little brother started school. Laura politely mentions that Bubba is not little. Pa agrees since the older boys are quite large and Bubba is about Mary’s age. Pa walks towards his seat and finally notices Mary’s eye. He asks what happen and Mary tries to stay vague by saying she got hit in dodgeball. Pa thinks that is a weird way to get a black eye, but Mary totally plays the “sucks at life” card in order to bypass the real explanation. Caroline is thankful that Mary didn’t have her glasses on at the time of the injury. I agree – Mary could have been blinded by the accident and then how would her life have turned out? Laura asks Pa if he ever had a black eye and he says that he did and that it taught him a lesson: “The only thing worse than one black eye is two black eyes.” They say grace and presumably chow down.

The next day at school Laura and Mary are playing on the teeter-totter. Laura tells her sister that her eye looks much better. As they chat about eye issues, Bubba hops on the fulcrum of the seesaw and stops their activity. Laura says “hey!” but Mary tells her to move along, so they head over to the swing. Nellie walks over to Bubba and compliments him on his trick. She offers Bubba a sour ball for use of the teeter-totter and they begin to form a symbiotic relationship. That’s what it’s called when two parasites feed off each other, right? Willie tries to tag along in this transaction, but Bubba pushes him out of the way. As Nellie seesaws sidesaddle (say that three times fast), Mary and Laura comment unfavorably on what they just observed. Mary points out that, if anything, they’ll both wind up with rotten teeth. Always the optimist.

Meanwhile, over at the Mercantile, Mr. Hanson runs into Mr. Henderson. He asks how things are going and tells his customer that his lumber order should be ready by Tuesday. Henderson sets down his supply bag and tells Hanson that he was headed over to the mill to cancel his order. It turns out he got a better price. Mr. Hanson can’t believe that someone was able to beat his price, but a couple of guys came by the Henderson place that morning and offered a price of $15. You can see the gears turning in Mr. Hanson’s head and he seems to have figured out what happened. There don’t appear to be hard feelings, but Hanson asks Henderson who the sellers were. Galender, you say? There’s a surprise.