"A MATTER OF FAITH"

This was a very good Episode.I don't know what id do if i was n her shoes.she must of been very freaked out.But she seemed calm and tired to heal herself with no help. Today you easly call for help with phone/text message ect.

I feel like I like completely opposite episodes from many people here because everyone seems to be commenting what a great episode this one is and how suspenseful it is, and I find it just boring! I also think the thing showing the one eye is just weird. I guess I need more dialog. I don't even remember liking this episode whenever I first saw it. I probably didn't even understand it then. I don't even know if I completely understand it now....like was she or was she not really going to try to cut the leg off? (I tend to think she was, as has been mentioned, since she was making that tourniquet so tight.)

Plus, a lot of this episode did not make a lot of sense to me. For example, I am sure that Pa would at least leave Jack to provide some protection for Caroline, especially since they were concerned about that family having been robbed in Springfield.

In addition, I cannot believe those pies made it all through that storm and did not get ruined....with that much wind and rain, surely they were getting wet out there on the porch. And even if there was no storm, how realistic is it to leave pies outside overnight? Wouldn't some animal come along and eat them?

You did a LOT of good points here, Amyk! I'd never thought about so much nonsense stuff in the episode. I think I was too much deep in the plot about Ma having a general infection and supposing she'll go to die, or at least to have some really BIG health trouble to analyze how weak the script was...

Vanesa.

The other thing I think is really strange, if I understand the timeline, is that Revd. Alden and Mrs. Foster were going to that other town on a Sunday. (I think Caroline was staying home to bake the pies on a Saturday.) I don't really know why Charles and the girls (and Jack) would be off buying pork on a Sunday. Wouldn't that have been considered sacriligious to be "shopping" on a Sunday? And why would the church be having a bake sale on a Sunday? I don't know, but I doubt that a church would do that on a Sunday back then. And why wouldn't the Ingalls family be meeting up a the church to worship with Revd. Alden?

Maybe I'm mixed up on what day of the week it is supposed to be, but things just don't make sense to me.

If Revd. Alden and Mrs. Foster could get to that town, do the bake sale, and go meet Charles all in the same day, I don't know why Charles and the girls even went off two days earlier (I think they left on a Friday) just to buy ham, unless they just wanted to take a little vacation.

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And even if there was no storm, how realistic is it to leave pies outside overnight? Wouldn't some animal come along and eat them?

Yeah, I think Jasper the raccoon would have come back to eat them!

jes9 wrote:

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And even if there was no storm, how realistic is it to leave pies outside overnight? Wouldn't some animal come along and eat them?

Yeah, I think Jasper the raccoon would have come back to eat them!

or at least the cow

Wow, what a rusty wire can cause the health of a person! Caroline suffered a lot with pain, fever and loneliness on the day she was home alone. All she wanted was a day to be alone with herself and ended up seriously ill ...
She had a lot of courage to take that knife to open the wound in the leg. I liked the scene where Laura and Charles talk about the matter of faith and trust in God. A great episode, I really liked it.

Penny Century L wrote:

Wow, what a rusty wire can cause the health of a person! Caroline suffered a lot with pain, fever and loneliness on the day she was home alone. All she wanted was a day to be alone with herself and ended up seriously ill ...
She had a lot of courage to take that knife to open the wound in the leg. I liked the scene where Laura and Charles talk about the matter of faith and trust in God. A great episode, I really liked it.

Yeah,She was so brave. I couldn't have handled myself like her.

I liked this one......I always wondered how the pies that were outside didn't get drenched with the downpour of rain. AND it was raining sideways towards the house.
Also, Pa never would have taken Jack and left Ma alone. Not even for a day

ChristineLovesLHOTP wrote:

I liked this one......I always wondered how the pies that were outside didn't get drenched with the downpour of rain. AND it was raining sideways towards the house.
Also, Pa never would have taken Jack and left Ma alone. Not even for a day

Never noticed that.But ya i don't think id like being left all alone back in them day's.

It is sad and scary how quicky Caroline got weak from the scratch on her leg. She was brave and courage in burning the infection out. Charles had fun on the trip. I wander where Carrie was when Charle, Mary and Laura were swinging out over the pond and jumping off the rope into the water. They had fun playing "blind man's bluff". Thank goodness Charles finally got home to Caroline and she survived her terrible ordeal.

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I wander where Carrie was when Charle, Mary and Laura were swinging out over the pond and jumping off the rope into the water.

She was wandering around in the woods looking for Elissa.

Karen Grassle said in an interview, this same thing happened to someone on the set, a guy who's name I can't remember, and he helped them design the "scratch" as it progressed and got infected.
Karen liked this episode because it focused on her and could have happened back then easily. We get tetanus shots, they couldn't.

Michael Landon did things to help the plot along that didn't always make sense, but sometimes you have to suspend reality to watch it.

They weren't near Springfield and deep down I don't think Charles was that worried about Caroline for a day..he left her with the kids many times for weeks on end...Jack could only do so much.
The pies not getting ruined was more of the suspension of reality for me, but they wanted it to rain/thunder to add to the suspense and scary moments in direct contrast to the fun the others were having...if they weren't left out, Reverend would have been worried.

I liked this episode. I remember Caroline giving them medical supplies to take "just in case". Maybe if she had the peroxide, etc. it wouldn't have gotten so bad, but she always thought of her family first.

Watching it today, they do show the pies when she Caroline stumbles in after collapsing in the rain...the rain is coming straight down but the covers of the pies are holding tight and they are under the roof over the porch.

Praire Girl wrote:

I liked this episode. I remember Caroline giving them medical supplies to take "just in case". Maybe if she had the peroxide, etc. it wouldn't have gotten so bad, but she always thought of her family first.

Hydrogen Peroxide was first identified and isolated by the scientist Louis Jacques Thenard in 1818. He achieved this when he was burning barium salts to make barium peroxide. He noticed that when he put the barium peroxide in water to dissolve, hydrogen peroxide was produced. He improved on this method over the years and his was the most common way of producing hydrogen peroxide until the mid twentieth century.

"It was believed for many years that hydrogen peroxide was an unstable molecule as all attempts to separate it from water failed." It wasn't until 1894 that 100% hydrogen peroxide was extracted from water by the scientist Richard Wolffenstein, using a process called vacuum distillation.
By the end of the nineteenth century many formulas had been proposed for hydrogen peroxide. However its correct formula of HOOH (H2O2) was first proved by Petre Melinkishvili.

In March 1888 the Journal of the American Medical Association contained a reference that in 1863 Messner proved the presence of hydrogen peroxide in rainwater. It has long been the earth's way of sterilising itself.
This application for using hydrogen peroxide to sterilise has a long history of use in industry. In particular within the pharmaceutical industry to sterilise petri dishes and within the aeronautical industry to sterilise satellites

That's very interesting, it is used very much today for a variety of things.

I always felt they mentioned it on this show as a way of showing Caroline had no real way of treating her wound, but even that would have possibly not worked if she waited too long or it was deep.

Karen really loved doing this show and I can see why, she really got to spread her wings a bit.

If any Michael Landon fans want to catch him in the part of the one hurt and left alone, on Bonanza, he had the starring role in this:
A Matter of Circumstance"
Alone at the Ponderosa while everyone else is away on a cattle drive, Joe suffers a compound fracture in his left arm when he kicked by a horse spooked by a severe thunderstorm. Joe fights to stay conscious and treat his wounds. When he becomes delirious, he fears that gangrene has infected his arm, leaving Joe with a difficult decision: Amputate, or not amputate? Written by Brian Rathjen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjS7HYraC9g

very interesting

Watch this again. Saw it on youtube. Wondering, did they show Caroline cutting the infection from her leg?

I don't think so, I think they cut to the fair again but you knew she was going to cut the wound. Soon after, Charles noted that Caroline wasn't with Reverend Alden and wanted to go home to check.
Is this what you watched..this third part on Youtube shows it right from the beginning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqjARWZNAUg

I didn't like this one!

I often thought, "If only Dr Baker didn't get called away to look at that boy's arm." But what could he have done. I don't think Ma's infection showed up at that early stage, and it wasn't like he could put triple bacterial ointment on it. Or given her some antibiotics.

At the end, poor Rev Alden looks shell-shocked. He probably feels so guilty about just taking the pies and not making sure Caroline was there and ok.

Did they show Caorline, cutting the infected wound off? I'm watching LHOTP, from the DVD collection. That's shape like the house. I thought, they show that scene.