Another lovely morning in Walnut Grove finds Miss Beadle's class learning all the ins and outs of entomology, the study of insects to the layperson, and over at Hanson's mill, an "old friend" drops by to inquire about a job, but Mr. Hanson vehemently turns him away. It seems there's some bad blood between him and this man, Wendell Loudy. They loved the same woman, she chose Loudy, she died, Hanson feels Loudy was responsible, you know the story. Anyway, when Laura and Mary go home to find jars with which to catch insects, little sister Carrie insists on tagging along. The girls catch an odd array of bugs, but as expected, Carrie fouls them up by taking off the tops of the jars. Frustrated, Laura and Mary head out to try again, leaving Jack to watch their troublesome sister. Undaunted, Carrie chases a butterfly out in the field, but fails to watch where she's going and falls down a poorly hidden mine shaft; Meanwhile, Charles and Caroline come across Mr. Loudy, down on his luck. Taking pity on him, they invite the poor slob home to dinner, which he reluctantly excepts. But on the way home, Laura runs up to tell them what had happened and they race to the scene of the accident. Carrie was in really deep. It seemed hopeless. But fortunately, Loudy is a former engineer. Taking charge of the situation, he sends Charles into town for digging supplies. Ropes, shovels, bellows, and a bottle. Yep, a bottle...of liquor. You want fries with that, Loudy? As fast as two horse power could carry him, Charles returned with Mr. Edwards, a few other men, and the supplies. The men set to work, just as Mr. Hanson and Doc Baker arrived. Instantly, Hanson pushed Loudy aside and took charge. What a great time to remember their rivalry, huh? Downtrodden, Loudy grabbed his bottle and disappeared.
The rescue operation continued well into the night. Nels, Grace, and even Reverend Alden came by to do what they could. But the one who truly suffered in all this was poor Caroline. Having her youngest child trapped down a well was eating away at her. But worse yet, when Miss Beadle came to help, Caroline instantly placed blame on her. It was apparently Miss Beadle's fault that Carrie fell down the mine, never mind her irresponsible sisters not looking after her, it's the school teacher's fault for doing her job by giving her students an assignment. While that was going on, an intoxicated Loudy discovers pieces of coal in the dirt brought up from the diggers. He deduces that Carrie had fallen down a ventilation shaft for a coal mine. He pleads with Hanson to stop digging, but he won't listen, so he enlists help from Charles, Edwards and Carl, who might know where the mine is located. Finding it, Loudy, Edwards and Charles scower the mine to try and find Carrie. After a thorough search, they find her. What they also find is the mine starting to collapse, like Loudy said. Meanwhile, topside, they felt the cave in too and it seemed all was lost. But not to worry, they got out of the mine just in time and Carrie was reunited with her family. Lars Hanson had himself a helping of humble pie by thanking Loudy, wanting to let bygones be bygones, and offered him that job.
This episode was fantastic! Edge of your seat. You knew they were going to be alright, but you still couldn't look away. Excellent performances from the cast, particularly Karen Grassle, John Ireland (Loudy), and Karl Swenson. Interesting to see the real jerky side of Mr. Hanson, but having more than one side makes a great character, even if at times he can be a real dick; This would be the first of two Carrie-based episodes in the series, and this one is the better, mainly because she's hardly in it. The second being that craptacular "Godsister" in Season 5. Don't even bother with it; this episode also contains two subplots that were reused in Season 9: someone trapped down a well and an ostracized citizen coming to the rescue (reused in "Little Lou"), and someone blaming somebody not at fault over what happened to their child. Reused in "A Child with No Name", thankfully Caroline blaming Miss Beadle didn't last long, whereas Laura's disdain for Doc Baker in the above episode lasted the whole time. Anyway, if you like Carrie episodes but you want to see as little of her in them as possible, this episode is for you! You can really dig it!
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