Armor-Piercing Question: Mary asks a visibly nervous Chris if he loves her mother (Caroline): the sheepish handyman can't even look the young girl in the eye when he quietly replies "I'll be gone before morning".
Alternatively, Chris recognizes based on experience with his chosen rolling-stone lifestyle that the situation cannot be salvaged once the threshold is crossed of someone expressing that his welcome is worn out, and prefers to quietly move on when a chapter comes to an end. He had already confided to Caroline that he is uncomfortable with the level of emotional attachment he had accrued with the Ingalls, and will later reassure Mary that he's simply leaving because that's how he lives his life and not specifically because of her accusation.
Bitch Slap: Mary sends Nellie away with one of these when the latter keeps teasing her with gossips about Caroline and the handyman.
Double Entendre: Nellie teases the Ingalls girls about what she heard from Mrs. Oleson's suspicions by talking about how "when the cat is away the mice will play" and repeatedly saying "monkey business".
Gossip Evolution: Mary, then — in a rare case of her siding with her sworn enemies — Mrs. Oleson and Nellie come to more and more erroneous conclusions on the relationship between Caroline and Chris, the handyman she hired to finish work on the kitchen.
Handy Man: The title character, Chris Nelson, is an itinerant handyman who has been making jobs at Walnut Grove, and offers to finish the kitchen Charles started to build before he was called out of town.
Honorary Uncle: Carrie starts calling Chris Nelson "Uncle Chris", and the other girls suddenly go for it (except Mary, who starts getting suspicious about his intentions with her mother).
