A Matter of Faith 3/5

Caroline eventually comes to but there’s no indication as to how much time has passed. It is still raining and when she looks over to the house it looks all squiggly and out of focus. Also, there’s a cat on a Theremin. Caroline struggles to pull herself up and she staggers over to the house. Once inside, she tries to towel herself off and takes refuge in front of the fireplace. She slips off her skirt and it is revealed that the poultice has moved down her leg revealing the full extent of the gash. Yikes! That cut is at least four inches long and who knows how deep.

Charles and the kids are also caught in the storm, but they have a tent sent up alongside their wagon. Not exactly ideal campout weather, but it looks like they’re going to try to make the most of it. As Pa serves dinner he guesses that Caroline is having “the time of her life” with the house all to herself. It’ll be memorable I’ll give him that.

We cut back to Caroline who has her hair down and is dressed in one of Charles’s nightshirts. That was me about a week or so ago after I got caught in the rain. It’s almost liberating – like you have a frumpiness license. Anyway, she is shivering as she lights a match. She has something wrapped in paper that she lights on fire with the match. Hmm, WebMD doesn’t say anything about pyromania being a symptom of gangrene. Oh, we get a closeup of the paper she is burning and see the article that Charles was reading earlier. Caroline looks over at the door but then a clap of thunder freaks her out and the room gets all blurry and out of focus. Many close-ups of Caroline’s eye before she hobbles over to lock the door. That seems like a bad idea. Maybe Caroline’s thought process is that she won’t be able to defend herself but chances are the storm would be enough to keep any would-be thieves at bay. Besides, no one likes to steal wet stuff. After slamming the window shutters closed, Caroline turns around, takes two steps and buckles under the pain in her leg. She’s able to hobble over to the fireplace and stoke the fire a bit. Speaking of fire, what was the purpose of burning the paper earlier?

Some water is dripping down onto the lip of a pot as Caroline is reapplying some bandaging on the wound. She looks like she could use a nice cup of hot tea. She wraps a shawl around her shoulders and starts to read her bible. Rather, she tries to read but the camera makes it all blurry and tricky. Knock it off, camera. Caroline is a little overwhelmed at this point and has to take a bit of a breather before continuing. Good idea.