When it debuted in 1974 my family watched “Little House on the Prairie” because Laura’s stories were some of my mother’s favorites. Between Zane Grey and Laura Ingles Wilder, I don’t think she could decide which she liked best. Grey wrote more prolifically than Mrs. Wilder. Mom had all the Little House books in her collection. She was always finding a new Grey Western that she did not remember having read.

I remember her telling me about a couple of books she had found that were new. She told me that as she started reading, they were the same stories she read before with different names.

Michael Landon produced the TV series and even wrote some of the episodes. Many were not original tales by Laura. I just watched this episode. IMDB shows it from season one, episode twenty-two. The synopsis says: “While out of town to buy horses, Charles Ingalls boards with Brett Harper, a man who is emotionally withdrawn from his unhappy family and trying to lose himself in work and whiskey, blaming himself for the accidental death of his oldest son in a riding accident four years earlier.”

This episode first aired on March 5^th, 1979. I have never seen it before. Why did God make me wait over forty-five years before he chose to show me some of His truths that are reflected in this story? Michael Landon is the screenwriter and as I said previously this was not one of Laura’s memories that she had recorded.

The theme is love. The love of a man for his wife and children and a woman for her husband and children. The death of a child often drives a couple apart and that is the plot here. This story would at first seem to be one where Charles is put in a dangerous situation.

Brett Harper is a horse breeder. Charles is sent to him to purchase ten horses by a very tight-fisted man. These characters are completely new to the series. We see none of the other regulars in the series in this episode. Michael used four main characters to draw from Charles Ingalls what we all know and love about him. He is a good and understanding man, a good father, and a friend even to strangers.

Mr. Harper invites Mr. Ingalls into his home while his crew gathers over a thousand horses for the army. Laura’s dad gets the best of that group. Of course, that means he stays with them for a few days. As you watch he becomes a surrogate father to this man’s kids. He comments on the wife’s pretty hands.

After his compliment, she sees him as a possible replacement for her grieving husband. Landon maneuvers his tale to sweetly point her back to the man that she knows she still loves if he will only give her the chance to help him. After four years of running from the anger at himself for the death of his oldest son, he decides that he will try again to let her help him gain control over alcohol and depression.

The wife is going to leave with Charles to move her children to town away from her husband. Ingalls decides that their leaving is not best for her husband. He escorts her back into the house and takes the kids from the wagon. As Laura’s father drives away, we hear in Melissa Gilbert’s voice the telling of a letter that was received two years later. A fourth child was born to the couple. A son they named Charles.

As a writer, I learned much from this script. You can start your plot the way others have before you. How your characters act must be consistent with who they are. The way the story concludes is yours. That is what I want you to hear today. You may have made bad choices in your life. It is still yours and you can change it.

©Copyright 2024 by Charles Kensinger