I like to leave my DVR set to record episodes of Little House on the Prairie — five at a time — and from time to time I check to see which ones it’s got loaded. Today I’m glad I did. The DVR contains what is probably my favorite Little House episode ever: Sweet Sixteen. After a couple seasons of ignoring her, Almanzo finally notices Laura, who’s teaching as a substitute for Mrs. Trimble.
As I folded laundry in front of the TV today I was reminded of another reason to love it: the few tie-ins to the books. Apparently, someone on the writing staff was a close reader of the books. The name of Almanzo’s horse, first of all, is Barnum. Then when we’re inside the schoolhouse (which is filled with kids like Chad Brewster, Ruby Dobkins, and Tommy Dobkins … pretty close), we hear snippets of Little Town on the Prairie. When Tommy’s reading aloud during his lesson, he’s on the very closing lines of a stanza we know: “… no reward is offered, for it is gone forever.”
Then when the superintendent (Mr. Williams, of course) visits, he asks to hear a mathematical recitation. Chad Brewster volunteers to do the division of this problem:
347,264 /16
The answer is 21,704.
If you recognized this as the exact problem Laura herself had to solve during the school exhibition, congratulations. You’ve earned yourself a third grade certificate.