"TO LIVE WITH FEAR"

“TO LIVE WITH FEAR”


While Caroline stays with Mary, Charles sets out with Mr. Edwards to find work and send money back to the hospital. They eventually accept a mining job that involves building a tunnel for a railroad. Sick with fear over his daughter's illness, Charles disregards his own safety and faces serious danger.
















Hello folks!!!! Yes... it's been QUITE A WHILE... since I've done Episode Reviews... but here I am again
'To Live With Fear' is one of my favorite episodes from Season 3. I have watched it several times. I love how the community came together for the Ingalls here when the church made a special donation for Mary and Mr. Edwards showed what a great friend he was. Poor Caroline & Charles... what a hard time to go through seeing their Mary sick and struggling to pay for the operation. You also see Mary have a meltdown and I loved the way Caroline handled it, staying firm with her and telling her to buck up! That was some tough love. Love the group hug ending.

Great episode! 5 stars!

This is a good esp.Very emotional and touching. It was nice how the town came together.

Such emotional episode. Bravo of Charles & Caroline be braving, when their oldest daughter, Mary is very sick.

This was a good episode....One of my favorites

I can't even imagine how scared Mary or her parents were. Caroline shouldn't have yelled at Mary when Mary felt she wasn't getting any better and asked her to tell Pa she loved him if she's not there when he gets back. Mary was sick and freightened and didn't need to get yelled at.

sweetkrissy2011 wrote:

the USa needs a better health care plans so people can pay for things.Glad in the end things got better/& mary got better/

Yes...And min my country is just the same.

Vanesa.

It was frightening, private hospitals cost dear and I don't know if they had good public ones then.
I thought Charles was a little out of character when he was exploding dynamite during the funeral but he must have felt desperate. He was willing to sell everything and not have a place to live to help Mary, everything was just centered on that.

I thought it was realistic to show how they had to go in again to operate and how sick Mary was,it was strange after working in a hospital to see the lack of gloves and other sterile instruments but that was the way it was then.

Spanky wrote:

I can't even imagine how scared Mary or her parents were. Caroline shouldn't have yelled at Mary when Mary felt she wasn't getting any better and asked her to tell Pa she loved him if she's not there when he gets back. Mary was sick and frightened and didn't need to get yelled at.

It did seem harsh, but she didn't want Mary giving up because she felt awful and as a Mom it's scary to think you are losing your child. Sometimes the mind does help the body heal....most Ingall's are pretty spunky though. ; )

I just got done watching part 1. I will be watching part 2 in a little bit. The church members pulling together to donate money for Mary's operation brought tears to my eyes.

I watched part 1 this afternoon. I cried when Charles arrived at church and Rev. Alden told him the church had collected money for Mary and when Laura was talking to mary at the Edwards place.

A very good episode showing the town pulling together (and Mr. Edwards) to help Charles pay for Mary's treatment. That tunnel work sure was dangerous.

It's strange, but I always felt that Charles didn't love Mary as much (or perhaps just a little less) than Laura and later Albert. I'm probably wrong and it's down to Mary being the elder child and growing up quite quickly and moving on as the series progressed.

I ALWAYS felt that Charles favored Laura. Maybe because she was more of a tomboy.

I think it was just that Laura was a tomboy, she would go fishing with him, want to do things that Mary might not like. Mary did more things with her Mother, but loving them, I think was equal and Albert was loved by both.

I only watched part one tonight and not sure when I'll be watching part two, but my comments right now will be based only on part one. I love it so much when the church gives the donation money to Charles and the way he looks around at them all with so much love. I told my husband that Doc Baker did not follow HIPAA laws! But I'm sure glad he didn't have to abide by patient confidentiality back in those days, and in some ways, I think we have gone too far with privacy issues regarding our health care. But what worked in those days may not work in ours.

In any case, I'm glad that Mary was able to go to Rochester for the surgery, but hate it that she takes the turn for the worse.

And I also love it that Mr. Edwards is going to go with Charles for the work so they can make more money faster for Mary. I do wonder, though, how the town seemed to sort of fall apart in just a few weeks or however long Mary, Charles, and Caroline have been gone.....was there an indication that times were so bad earlier in the episode? I mean, Mr. Sprague just up and closed the bank, the mill seems on the brink of bankruptcy, etc.!

While the hospital administrator has a point that the hospital has to have money to be able to provide excellent care, he didn't have to be such a jerk about it. He could express at least a bit of sympathy. At least Dr. Mayes was really nice about the financial situation and I think he said he would even forfeit his fee.

Okay, watched part 2 tonight.....I have sort of mixed feelings about this episode. I feel like part 1 was better than part 2. I do think it was interesting that they showed the Chinese doing the dangerous work for the railroad.....I think that is pretty realistic. It's a bit unrealistic that Charles would even know what to do and could just walk in and become the "powder man" but we all know Charles is a super-hero who can do anything! I really disliked his attitude towards the Chinese and it seemed so unlike the "Pa" we all know and love. I realize he was desperate for the money for Mary, but somehow it still seemed pretty far out of character for Pa to be acting like he was. I did actually like the fight between him and Mr. Edwards and that Mr. Edwards was trying to set him right. I'm so glad Mr. Edwards stopped his working to attend the funeral. I think Isaiah did understand why Charles was acting like he was, but he was right not to go along with it. And yet, when it really mattered most, Isaiah was still the true friend to Charles. I'm glad the Chinese men also realized that they should not just let Charles and the boss guy die in the tunnel. But I still feel kind of like this whole subplot about the way the railroad treated the Chinese working for them seemed kind of like too much to add into this already heavy two-parter. Maybe that would have been a better plot on its own. However, without the desperation for the money for Mary, then Pa probably would have been more on the side of the Chinese workers rather than seeming to be against them, so maybe it is best that it was included as part of this episode.

I like that Caroline got the job in the laundry. Still didn't like Mr. Benson, the administrator. I just think he could show some compassion and instead of just insisting on payment perhaps he could have come up with the idea of Caroline working there at the hospital.


Something I really disliked about this episode was the ending. Why couldn't they have written in an ending where we see Mary, Pa, and Ma reuniting with Laura and Carrie? I especially would have like to see Laura and Mary reuniting. Plus, unless COZI TV cut it out, we didn't even see how Grace was faring with her own children and Laura and Carrie. I didn't like that they were completely out of this episode.

Shell wrote:

I can't even imagine how scared Mary or her parents were. Caroline shouldn't have yelled at Mary when Mary felt she wasn't getting any better and asked her to tell Pa she loved him if she's not there when he gets back. Mary was sick and freightened and didn't need to get yelled at.

That's exactly how I felt about this scene, and it was one reason I did not like part two as well as part one. Caroline seemed really harsh with Mary here. Why can't Mary cry about her condition and have some fear that she is going to die? She has been in so much pain and through so much that it seems to me she deserves a little pity party for herself, as long as it does not go on and on. I thought Caroline should have comforted her rather than reprimanding her for feeling sorry for herself. But maybe if I remember that Caroline must be exhausted herself and so worried but hiding it for Mary's sake, that helps me to be a bit more understanding of Caroline's reaction to Mary in this scene.

littlehouselover wrote:

It was frightening, private hospitals cost dear and I don't know if they had good public ones then.
I thought Charles was a little out of character when he was exploding dynamite during the funeral but he must have felt desperate. He was willing to sell everything and not have a place to live to help Mary, everything was just centered on that.

I thought it was realistic to show how they had to go in again to operate and how sick Mary was,it was strange after working in a hospital to see the lack of gloves and other sterile instruments but that was the way it was then.

I thought it was kind of funny that the surgeon was operating essentially in a suit! He didn't have the suit jacket on, but had the suit vest, etc. I guess that is probably how they did it though.....perhaps he needed to appear professional. And can you imagine what it would be like to live without antibiotics, etc.? I also wondered if they had to give Mary morphine for pain.....at least she didn't get addicted to morphine! And I also wonder how good the anesthetic would be for these kind of surgical procedures. Would it have been ether?

I think it would have been interesting, if there was time, to dig a bit deeper into Charles' behavior. Yes, he was desperate, yet I kind of think that he was displaying some racism in this episode. If those other workers had been white Anglo men, would he still have acted the way he did? In the scene where he went and saw the dying man, he said something like "we have to take care of our own." Did he just mean each family, or was there a hint of racism in that comment? Also, having been the recipient of the generosity of the people of Walnut Grove towards Mary (were they doing that because she was "one of their own"?) and of Isaiah (Mary was not, after all, his daughter), it just seems like Charles could have showed more empathy. If nothing else, he could have stopped blasting the dynamite at least long enough for the funeral. That was extremely disrespectful.

Shell wrote:

I just got done watching part 1. I will be watching part 2 in a little bit. The church members pulling together to donate money for Mary's operation brought tears to my eyes.  

Yes, that was my favorite scene in this entire two-part episode. I wrote above that I would have at least liked a reunion scene with Laura and Carrie, but it would have been great to see Mary back at church thanking the people for what they did to help her.

MankatoJoe wrote:

A very good episode showing the town pulling together (and Mr. Edwards) to help Charles pay for Mary's treatment. That tunnel work sure was dangerous.

It's strange, but I always felt that Charles didn't love Mary as much (or perhaps just a little less) than Laura and later Albert. I'm probably wrong and it's down to Mary being the elder child and growing up quite quickly and moving on as the series progressed.

I think Charles showed a lot of love for Mary throughout the series. I do think Laura was maybe kind of his "favorite" perhaps because (as has been mentioned) she was the tomboy and really seemed to enjoy things that Pa enjoyed more than Mary did. But he certainly loved Mary. This episode proves that.....also, I think we see so much love for Mary in the episodes where she goes blind. I think he just maybe showed love for Mary in a slightly different way than with Laura. With Mary, his love was shown more by his actions of being her provider. With Laura, it was more by his spending quality time with her. Maybe the two girls have two different "love languages" if you know anything about those "five love languages." And maybe Pa knew how best to show love to each of them.