Babysitting Episode: Mr. Edwards is asked to look after the Ingalls kids while Charles and Caroline make a second honeymoon trip to Mankato, since Grace Snider was unavailable due to a sore throat.
*Crack!* "Oh, My Back!": Mr. Edwards throws his back out when he plays horse with the girls. He's initially capable of playing with Carrie, but when Mary and Laura join her, it's too much for his back. In the end, he has to walk home with his back hunched so that the girls don't get into trouble for that.
Informed Attribute: Charles says a fella at the freight depot described the play they were about to watch as "the funniest play he's ever seen", but not only is the play a Melodrama which takes itself seriously, nobody in the audience is seen laughing. Either the fella thought the play was an in-universe example of Narm or he had a twisted sense of humor.
Mood Whiplash: While the episode is comedic-oriented, there are two moments where things get more serious:
When Charles is buying Caroline a new bonnet at a women's clothes shop, an old lady appears asking about her daughters' whereabouts. The shop attendant informs Charles that the woman's daughters are actually dead, and were killed by a fire started by a lighting while they were alone at home, which boosts Caroline's worry about the girls back home. Unlike other moments where Caroline's worry spoils her and Charles' fun, this one is not played for laughs.
One night, the girls ask Mr. Edwards to read them a story, unaware that he can't read. Isaiah doesn't want to admit that he's illiterate, so he tries to pretend he can, even though he knows he's not fooling them. The girls pretend they didn't notice it out of respect and Mary offers to read it instead, in a sequence equal parts sad and heartwarming.
The Münchausen: Mr. Edwards tells the girls how a tree he chopped down fell on him, which kept him stuck for three days, and then a Sioux Indian saved him and in doing so named him his honorary brother, renaming him "Sitting Bull". Mary doesn't seem to believe the story as there was another famous Sittin Bull, but when Laura starts showing her disappointment, she assures her younger sister that there are probably a lot of people with that name.
Race Against the Clock: When Laura is at the Mercantile, she spots her parents returning early and, worried that they'll find the house unorganized and Mr. Edwards incapacitated by back pain from playing horse with the girls, runs home and helps Mary hurry to put everything in place before Caroline and Charles get home.
Your Television Hates You: More like "the theatre you chose to attend hates you"; Charles takes Caroline to the theatre and hopes she stops worrying about the girls back at home, but the play happens to be "Abandoned Daughters", about a deadbeat mother who announces to her daughters that she's abandoning them and they beg her to stay, in a way that'd give the most melodramatic episodes of this series a run for their money. Poor Caroline is reduced to tears and Charles realizes it's time they go back home.
