What in the Prairie!?

So now that we have our blind daughter off to school and fall is officially here, it's time for Laura and Carrie to go back to the school too. First, I just want to take a moment of silence for the old order of sisters on the prairie. For so long, and so many books it was Mary and Laura, parters in crime...or not crime but at least in their desire to be good and virtuous little girls. Even when Laura hated Mary and her stupid blond curls, even after Mary went blind from the scarlet fever they still took their little slough walks together. Now she's off in Iowa. Sniff.

Sorry, for the unladylike show of emotion.

Anyway, Carrie and Laura hike the mile into to town, and even though Laura's 15, and has spent lots of winters in school, and around people, she's still terrified. I'm glad to know that Laura and Almanzo eventually end up together, otherwise I'd think she was going the way of the crazy claim shack lady. Just saying. Of course the other reason we're going to school is to meet Almanzo's sister (no word on whether it's Eliza Jane or Alice, yet) which will hopefully lead to Laura and Almanzo's beautiful horses sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G.

But there's two things keeping the K-I-S-S-I-N-G from happening. #1 Laura can't stand Miss Wilder. She panders to the popular girls, and gives some kind of innocuous speech about respecting each other and being unselfish and seeing her as a friend not a cruel task mistress, which I thought was fine but gave Laura the sweats. I guess they all just prefer a harder-line one room school teacher. So I wasn't immediately anti Manzo's sister till #2 happened...Holy shit Nellie Oleson (!!!), from The Banks of Plum Creek, strides right into the school house (late of course) like the perfect bitch she's always been. Of all the frontier towns, in all of the Dakotas, she has to show up in DeSmet. Geez!

In addition to being late and looking irritatingly hot in a polonaise dress with deep pleated ruffles around the neck and sleeves and hem, she demands that the little orphan girl get up so her bitchiness can have the best seat in the school house. And Miss Wilder's all like, get up orphan girl, let the little rich girl have the seat. Stupid Eliza Jane or Alice. Worst of all Nellie activates some of Laura's dormant insecurities.

She had grown taller than Laura, and she was much slimmer. She was willowy, while Laura was still as round and dumpy as a little French horse.

Ugh, that's not good. I've always said that "dumpy" is the one insult I cannot forgive. As you'd expect Nellie acts like she's waaaaaay to good for the frontier, even pretending to be from further east than Minnesota. Please. All the girls are all from "back east," Nellie, it is a 19th century frontier town after all. But while they're all tan and happy, Nellie complains constantly about the prairie sun, making a big deal about not ruining her perfect lily-white skin.

But Pa's got a secret. He gets all the best gossip from town and heard that Mr. Oleson somehow lost all his money in Walnut Grove. Possibly because the town is cursed. Now all he and his uppity daughter have to their name is a claim outside of town. This news cheers Laura up slightly, especially since now that the Ingalls have moved to town for the winter and the Olesons are living out on their claim, the tables are turned. Laura's the town girl now, and Nellie's the country mouse. Oh BURN Nellie!

The biggest problem with Nellie's unfortunate (for Laura, not us, since we love to hate) appearance is that she's got her marrying-up eye on Almanzo's sweet horse flesh too. Laura naively believes that having the best grades in school is going to be enough to get her in good with Almanzo's sister, but Nellie goes right to source and just starts sucking up to her. Which makes her a much more likely candidate for riding behind the horses in Almanzo's wagon. Oh woe!

And just in case you think I'm going overboard with the sexual horse innuendos, let me pass the mic to Laura:

Their glossy shoulders glistened, their black manes and tails blew shining in the wind...Sunlight ran glistening on the curve of their arched necks, straight along their smooth sides and curving again on their round haunches.

That's shortened from two paragraphs on the beauty of the horses' glistening haunches. Well, get to work Laura! Nobody catches a man by getting the best marks in math!