Fred 1/5

We see a lone goat chomping away in a field. An elderly gentleman carrying a bucket into a nearby barn catches the goat’s attention. The goat bleats before investigating the man in the barn. Inside, the man attempts to sing, but it sounds like he may be drunk and a horse whinnies in disapproval. The man strikes up a conversation with the horse before checking its hooves. The goat enters. The man starts to sing again while he moves some bags. As the man bends over, the camera, er, goat, zooms in on the man’s keester.

Outside, we see the farmer busting through the barn wall. A woman and Laura run over to check on the man. The woman asks if he hurt himself, but he starts to blame the goat. He stands and starts ranting and raving like Yosemite Sam about what he is going to do to that animal. As he starts gesturing wildly, Laura (or perhaps Melissa Gilbert) tries to hold back from laughing. As the farmer’s wife tries to talk her husband out of shooting the goat, Laura walks over to check on the animal. The woman lets on that Laura was hired to do something at the farm and Farmer Sam needs to pay her before he goes gun crazy.

The farmer tries to do some arithmetic to figure out how much he owes Laura. It doesn’t go very well. As he gets every detail of the transaction wrong, Laura examines the goat and determines that it looks healthy. Laura asks the farmer, whose name is Parsons, if he is really going to shoot the goat. He tells the girl that goat-shooting is next on his agenda, then he starts to count out the money. He’s short a penny and asks Laura if that’s okay. Instead, Laura offers to take the goat in lieu of cash. Parsons eyes light up and he decides to push all of the positive aspects of the goat. Besides the fact that most of what he says are bold-faced lies, he already has the sale so why is he pushing it? It’s an as-is transaction, but what he’s doing is actually hurting himself in the long run. Laura sort of catches on to this and she asks, “if he’s so special, why are you going to shoot him?” Mr. Parsons does not strike me as a savvy businessman. Despite this Laura takes the goat over the money. We do not hear zonk music, so can we see what’s behind curtain number 2?

Back at the homestead, Caroline snaps some peas while Mary does some homework. “You know just looking up answers to homework questions isn’t too hard,” Mary says, “but writing a long essay on why things happened is a lot more work.” Tell me about it. At least you aren’t trying to throw in jokes when you can. Caroline tells Mary that Miss Beadle wants Mary to think. Isn’t that what the Internet is for? The two of them hear some bleating outside and decide to check it out. Caroline peeks out the window and her walk becomes stern.

“Laura, what on Earth is that?” Caroline asks. Laura explains the situation, but in the way that a ten year old gives all of the details out of order and never actually answers the question. She isn’t being evasive, she’s just giving the points without the argument. She says she saved his life, but Mary asks if she meant Mr. Parsons or the goat. See what I mean? Mary pets the goat and suggests the name William the Conqueror. Caroline laughs at this, but Laura says she already decided on the name Fred. Laura says he kinda looks like a Fred, and based on my experience with the Freds of the world she's right. Caroline cautions her daughter that Pa might not be too keen on having a goat around. “But you know how Pa likes animals,” Laura says. Yeah, because that raccoon you brought home wasn’t a problem at all – Charles loved that. Laura calls Fred friendly then realizes that his name should be Fred the Friendly Goat. I wonder what Ed Friendly (the guy at the end of the credits) thought about this episode? Caroline tells Laura to put Fred in the barn and get started on her homework.

Meanwhile in the swamp, Charles is gathering some sort of grass. You see, I have this theory about Little House where you can tell the stupidity of a given story based on certain factors. If the episode is unbearably dumb, Charles and sometimes Caroline will be out of town or otherwise unavailable. If it is only sort of dumb but still likely to cause the ladies to change the channel, then we get some Michael Landon Beefy Man Chest Action. As Charles carries the grass out of the water, we not only get MLBMCA but wet MLBMCA. He hears a carriage driving by. Charles looks down and panics. Oh right, people usually went into the water nakkers in those days. Once the carriage is gone, we see Charles rise up out of the algae covered water. Hubba hubba?

Later on, Caroline is heating up some water as Charles rides up to the homestead. He looks rather haggard as he starts to unload the cart filled with swamp grass. Apparently Charles is gathering all this grass for some guy who is paying him a rather paltry amount for all the work that is involved. Caroline tells Charles that there is a bath ready for him and she can finish unloading the grass.

Charles enters the barn and starts to undress. As he takes off his boots, he grabs onto the barn door for support. Fred decides to check out the visitor and his eyes lock on to Charles’s rump. Caroline remembers while she is unloading that she should tell her husband about the goat, but by the time she gets to the barn Charles has already been introduced. Hard.