Season 3 episode 6: Journey in the spring

day 6

This is the episode where Charles brings his Pa back to their house in Walnut Grove after Charles' Ma dies.

This one's a 2-parter, so the synopsis will be rather long.
The episode begins with Lansford Ingalls (Charles' pa) and Charles' Ma Laura receiving a letter from Charles Ingalls, inviting them to come and stay in Walnut Grove with them. That day Charles' Ma passes away. When Charles Ingalls receives that letter, he decides to go and get his pa. After a couple days of persuading, and one suicide attempt on the part of Mr. Ingalls, Sr., Lansford is finally convinced by Charles to come back to Walnut Grove. When he meets Laura Ingalls Jr, he is elated to discover that she is just like his wife was. Later, however, sadness strikes. While Laura is showing off her horse to her grandfather, she charges him through a barbed wire fence. Bunny has to be shot, which breaks Laura's heart, not only because she loved Bunny, but because Lansford had promised that Bunny would be well again and that Charles would not hurt Bunny. Bitterness stays between Laura and her Pa until the next day, when the family returns from a picnic to find that Lansford (who had decided to stay home so that he would not get between Laura and her Pa) has run off. The next day, after a hard night of searching, they awaken to find that Laura and their Christmas money (upwards of 4 dollars) were gone. Laura has gone to the Springfield train station to try and find her grandpa, who had been found lying by the railroad tracks after trying to get into a boxcar on a freight train the night before. When Lansford refuses to go back to Walnut Grove, Laura starts to buy a ticket to Boston, but is stopped by her grandfather, who finally agrees to go to her house and stay until Winter is over.



Doc Baker looks grim: NO
Pa broke a bone: NO
Somebody cries: YES ( Laura x2, Lansford)
Pa cries:YES (x 6, because his ma died)
 Crop failure: NO (but Charles wrote about 'unless we have crop failure' to his Pa, so IT IS COMING.)
 Runaway Wagon: NO
"Oh, Pa!": YES (Please don't shoot bunny!)
Pa punches someone; someone punches Pa: NO
Reality Check: NO
Mr. Olsen bullies Mrs. Olsen into behaving like a human being: NO
Unexplained absence of a main character: NO 
 
My personal feelings about this episode:
This is a very sad sad sad sad sad sad sad sad sad sad sad SAD SAD SAD SAD episode for me as a horse lover. I have loved these things since I was two, and I cried my guts out when Bunny died. I had to have my mom hold my hand and hide the screen. YES I KNOW I AM A TOTAL BABY AND YOU KNOW WHAT I DON'T CARE. (-: