Babies Ever After: One of the workers who joined Charles and Jack Peters has a pregnant wife. When he returns home, he finds she already had their baby, much to his delight.
Cruel and Unusual Death: One of the miners, Jack Peters, accidentally blows himself up with dynamite.
Following in Relative's Footsteps: When Charles goes to Jack Peters' family to tell them the bad news and hand them the money Jack earned, his son is of course shattered by his father's death, but then vows to follows in his footsteps by becoming the best powder-monkey the world has ever seen.
Hard-Work Montage: The men working at the mine by drilling holes and installing explosives, and the women (under Caroline's suggestion) working to salvage the crop that had got wet.
Retirony: Shortly after he and Charles win a $100 prize in a miner competition, Jack boastfully beams with pride and talks about how the funds will help his family (a wife and young son) ... before – in the excitement – he accidentally steps onto an undetonated land mine and is blown to kingdom come.
Surprisingly Sudden Death: Despite all the build up about the dangers of installing explosives for the operations, Jack's death is completely unexpected, and a reminder that this kind of accident could happen at any moment.
Very Loosely Based on a True Story: Several of the events in this episode are based on the real-life 100-mile walk Laura Ingalls Wilder writes about in "On the Banks of Plum Creek." However, the script changes the cause of the ruined crops; in real life, it was locusts (and the Ingalls move on), whereas on TV it was a hailstorm and Charles is able to return to Walnut Grove. Also, the women are able to salvage some of the crop that had matured enough.
