My Ellen 3/5

At the mill, Charles and Mr. Garvey are making some repairs on the water wheel. Jonathan is sitting inside the wheel working on some internal repairs while Charles is fixing something on the top. Charles says he’s ready and heads over to the reservoir. At first Mr. Garvey was ready, but before he leaves the wheel he sees another repair he needs to make. He tells Charles to hold up a second, but Charles doesn’t hear him. Charles pulls the blocker out of the reservoir and water starts heading down the aqueduct. The wheel starts to turn with Jonathan inside. Luckily it is a simple wheel-and-axle setup, so Mr. Garvey only gets flipped upside down instead of ground into bits. He still cries out as if he’s getting ground to bits. I guess Jonathan isn’t a spinning ride kind of guy. Charles doesn’t notice anything wrong until he is practically standing next to the wheel, but once he notices the problem he runs up to the reservoir to block the water again. Charles runs back down to check on Garvey, who says he hasn’t been that dizzy since the Sleepy Eye Juggler contest. That...makes no sense. Anyway, Charles asks again if Garvey is alright and he replies that he is going to get a sarsaparilla and have a sit-down. Once he leaves, Charles cracks up. This better be important later – I hate writing “sarsaparilla” in vain.

Later on, Charles loads up a wagon with sacks of something and the customer drives off. Reverend Alden stops by and tells Charles that he stopped by the Taylor place this morning. Wait, are we time traveling now? Alden says that Heloise still doesn’t want to talk to him or her husband, so there's no continuity issue. Anyway, Charles is surprised that Cal is getting the silent treatment, and the Reverend informs him that she blames her husband for Ellen’s death also. Alden says that there is no rational reason for any of these accusations and that Heloise is a woman on the verge. His suggestion: Send Caroline over to chat with the bereaved. No good could possibly come of that. His reasoning is that sometimes a woman’s understanding is far more helpful than a preacher saying “be strong.” So...no women in the clergy because of the competition? Charles agrees that this might help and says he’ll ride home right away and ask Caroline.

It looks like Caroline agreed since we now see her walking over to the Taylor house. Cal is outside loading the wagon. She greets Mr. Taylor and explains the reason for her visit. He warns her that she’ll probably be wasting her time. I do love it when the tertiary characters are the smartest ones in the room. It turns out the reason he is loading the wagon is because Heloise asked him to leave. I’m guessing it was more like “demanded”, but it’s the same result either way. Caroline grimly nods and he goes on to say that he’s tired of the fighting and he too needs time to grieve. He mounts the wagon and tells Caroline that he’ll be at his cousin Clay’s if Heloise wants him for any reason.

After Cal rides away, Caroline knocks on the front door. “I told you to go and not come in,” Heloise says. I assume she is mistaking Caroline for Cal, but I’m not 100% positive. Caroline announces herself and says she was hoping they could talk. “Go home to your family,” Heloise says, “take care of your children; you’re not welcome here.” Caroline leaves dejected.

The girls are walking by the same fenced area as that fateful Friday. Carrie is slowing the girls down and Mary tells her to hurry up. Carrie says she doesn’t want to go because she doesn’t have a present. “We’ll tell Miss Beadle it’s from both of us,” Mary says. Are they going to school or a birthday party? Laura calls “No Fair” on this since she has flowers and the other two have a “real gift”. Mary decides to say the gift is from all three girls, but then Carrie calls “NO FAIR” because they’re back to the 3:2 present ratio. Oy. Laura comes up with the compromise that they’ll give the gift to Miss Beadle and she’ll give the flowers to Mrs. Taylor. Mary reminds her sister that Mrs. Taylor still isn’t very social yet, but Laura says she’ll leave them at the doorstep then. Laura decides to take the shortcut through the Busby land, even though Pa said not to go that way.

Laura reaches the Taylor house without any trouble and knocks on the door. There’s no response, so she knocks again. Somehow her gentle rapping causes the door to swing all the way open. She walks in while calling out for Mrs. Taylor. Laura looks straight ahead the whole time and doesn’t notice Mrs. Taylor standing in the doorway to Ellen’s bedroom. Heloise asks Laura what she wants and Laura offers her the flowers. Mrs. Taylor slowly walks over, takes the flowers and holds them the way one would hold a newborn baby. Laura watches this, cautiously, as Heloise muses on how Ellen always brought her flowers. Heloise looks over at Laura and smiles. Laura has been replaced with a soft focus version of Ellen. Uh oh.

The smile quickly vanishes and Mrs. Taylor says she’ll put the flowers in water. Laura is unsure of what to do and notices Ellen’s school supplies sitting on the table. Heloise explains that she got the supplies ready out of habit and then begins to ask “why? Why did it happen?” Oh good, we’ve progressed to the bargaining phase. “She was such a good girl,” starts Heloise who turns around and sees Ellen once more. Ellen is wearing Laura’s outfit, which I hope was not a regular occurrence because Ellen doesn’t really mesh with Laura’s aesthetic. She gives the kid a once over, but when given a second over she reverts back to Laura.

Laura gets sufficiently weirded out by this display and says she needs to go to school. Heloise asks Laura for a favor before she goes. She says she’s gotten her appetite back and was wondering if Laura could fetch some apples from the root cellar. Laura agrees, not fully comprehending the crazy in Heloise’s eyes. As soon as Laura is in the cellar and heading to the corner for the apples, Mama Taylor pulls up the ladder and shuts the door on Laura. Heloise grabs the flowers and Ellen’s belongings and walks out the door. It looks like she pulled the table over the cellar door as well. The scene ends with a close-up of a photo of Ellen, which will probably end up here at some point.