the high cost of being right.

When mr garvey's barns down.He lots all of his crops.His pride kind of keeps him from accpecting help from anyone. His wife gets a job at the post office to help. He doesn't approve of her working and yes depends her not take it. I have so much respect for her standing up for her self and keeping the job.So that kind of starts the fight between them.Glad they work it out in the end.

I didn't really like this one but it had a great funny ending. All because Charles started laughing the Garveys didn't get divorced!

Yeah,the ending was funny.

Boy did Charles get red in the face from laughing. His laughing saved the Garveys marriage. Laura got upset when Charles and Caroline had a disagreement over the materal she bought to make him a new shirt and Laura got upset and told them to stop fighting for fear they would split up.

I felt sorry for Andy having to listen to his parents fight.

Sometimes it's like the only storylines the Garveys got were those surrounding marital issues.

Could you picture Edwards and his wife in that same scene if written for them instead?

I never understood why they always made Mr. Garvey so dumb...he always was like a boor with his wife about things, very unreasonable and they even had him talk slowly, at least in the earlier episodes. It was hard to listen too at times.
Mr. Edwards wasn't cultured but he wasn't stupid. This episode always made me cringe...it didn't matter how many times Charles lost a crop or if his friends wives worked or helped each other, he had to be stubborn and sacrifice his family because of it. I know men like this exist, but I didn't think they had to make him so unreasonable.

Not one of the better shows for me.

Watched this episode yesterday. Here's the thing, Jonathan is beating himself up over the wrong issue!

"Your worthless husband can't provide for his family." No, he did provide for his family, he raised an awesome corn crop! The reason the barn fire started is from sparks getting out of the chimney, there was probably soot build-up in the chimney. He should have said, "Your worthless husband didn't clean the chimney, and as a result, sparks got out of the top, got to the barn, and the corn crop burned up."

Just watched this episode. Jonathan was to proud in the fact that he felt that he should be the only one to provide for his family.. even to the point of leaving his family once Alice got a job so that he could try to prove he was right.

In contrast this situation reminds me of when the Ingalls lost a lot of money they were counting on when Mr. Hanson had to close the down the mill in the episode The Richest Man in Walnut Grove. Only difference was when his family offered to help, Charles let them and even said he couldn't do it without them. If Jonathan would have been able to look past his pride he could have said and felt the same and saved his family a lot of grief.

I liked this episode a lot! I was glad that everything worked out so well in the end... I loved where Charles starts laughing hysterically making everyone else start laughing too.. that was just about the best way that could have ended.    

I also loved the part where Caroline tells Charles he would wear long johns to church... and where Charles says that it would be worth it, just to see the look on Mrs. Oleson's face!  

Did anyone else out there notice that the way in which this episode ends is similar to the ending of the classic comedic movie "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World"?

Never thought about it, but you are absolutely right........The one thing I always thought about was this: Jonathon was an idiot in this particular story! Really exemplified how destructive pride can be.....

I think that was the lesson that they tried to teach in that episode... that pride can be strong enough to ruin a family. Great point Dave.

I think pride hurts most of us, that's why most people don't come back to the fold after arguments, let old spats fester for years, not be the "prodigal son or daughter" coming home.

I've been there, but I still thought Mr Garvey seemed over the top but there are extremes everywhere.

I would agree it seemed a bit over the top, (especially for Jonathan's character) but I guess they had to write it that way in order for the story to work.

I really liked the ending to this episode when everyone started laughing and the marriage was saved. Does anyone know how they filmed the fire on Johnathon's arms? It looked very real.

Laura (Half Pint) wrote:

I really liked the ending to this episode when everyone started laughing and the marriage was saved. Does anyone know how they filmed the fire on Johnathon's arms? It looked very real.

Fire resistant sleeves under the shirt...................

This was a sad episode seeing two people who cared about each other so much fighting because of their own pride. I loved the ending of the episode, when the judge said "is anyone getting divorced?" and Jonathan said "I don't know, are you?"

I see this kind of thing every day, pride is the downfall of many. Even in my family, some can't say 'I'm sorry" or "Let's regroup" at times, it's a good thing to keep in mind how quickly things can escalate.