Armor-Piercing Question: When Solomon asks Charles whether he'd like to live a hundred years as a black man or 50 years as a white man. Charles, who was trying not to crush Solomon's hopes, finds no answer to that.
Bittersweet Ending: Solomon admits the truth and goes back to his mother and brother, he won't be able to pursue his education, but at least can take what he learned from the brief period he was living with the Ingalls and attending school.
Hard Truth Aesop: There are people who'll never receive the same opportunities we take for granted, from education to better jobs, solely because of their background. And there isn't always something we can do about it.
N-Word Privileges: Michael Landon was always quite frank when writing, directing or otherwise overseeing scripts of episodes that dealt with racism. No coons, hebes or anything euphemistic of the sort here … when a character who was a black-person hater spoke his displeasure about African Americans, he called him a "nigger." Or, in this case, that's what Solomon – the young African-American boy who played the title role in this episode – said he hated most about his skin color, when asked by his classmates: "Being a nigger."
Practically Different Generations: Solomon is an 11-year-old and has an adult older brother. Their mother seems old anough to be Solomon's grandmother.
Writers Cannot Do Math: Solomons shows his father's paper from he was his age to try to sell himself to the Ingalls. Charles comments that the paper is dated 1854, about two decades prior to when this episode is set (mid- to late-1870's), meaning Solomon's father would be in his mid to late-thirties if he were alive, but he had another son, who's an adult now, and Solomon's mother seems old enough to be a grandmother suggesting his late father should have been born much earlier than 1843.
