Writer: Paul Savage.
Director: Robert Butler.
Music: Jerry Goldsmith.
"Whenever
I look back to those days when I was growing up in the great Depression I'm
always convinced that I came from a remarkable family. It wasn't that my
brothers and sisters and I were sheltered from the realities of those difficult
times, it was simply that our mother and father had a way of making more of
what we had and less of what we didn't have".
Around the breakfast table Grandpa talks
about a bee hive located on John-Boy’s Meadow. Mary Ellen wonders why it’s
called that, since John-Boy will be too busy as a writer to ever farm the land.
Grandpa says that he named the land the day John-Boy was born, and remarks that
writers also farm. While they talk a rickety-old truck approaches Walton’s
Mountain. It nearly collides with Yancy Tucker’s car when its driver does not
stop at a stop sign. The drivers exchange words appropriate to each locality.
At Ike’s store John-Boy and Jason find that their mother’s order comes to one
dollar, twenty-nine cents. But John-Boy was only given a dollar, so asks Ike to
remove the peaches from the list. Ike allows them to pay later so they can take
advantage of his special of two free jawbreakers with an order of one dollar,
twenty-five cents or more. But, John-Boy knows his mother’s position on credit,
and declines Ike’s kind offer.
The old truck approaches as the brothers exit
the store. A man and boy quietly enter by preventing the bell from ringing over
the door. However Ike hears the two and asks if he can help. The man says they
will take cheese, crackers, and two bottles of orange soda. While this happens
the boy steals apples. The man says to Ike that they “just blew in from
Kansas”, referring to the drought. When Ike announces the total comes to
thirty-four cents, the man wonders why so high. Ike tells him that it includes
the nine cents for each apple inside the boy’s pockets. The man and boy
apologize and pay the price. Back outside the man admonishes the boy for being
caught, but the boy shows him bacon and two cans of peaches that he also stole.
Mary Ellen wonders if she can visit Aunt Bea
in Washington, but Olivia says the family can’t afford it. Mary Ellen is upset
about never having been further than Charlottesville. Just then the old truck
is heard driving up to the house. Olivia realizes that it’s Cousin Cora Denby,
her husband Hamilton ‘Ham’, and son Job. They ask to stay at the house until a
job letter arrives from Newport News, and Ham presents the bacon and peaches to
Olivia. Job will be sleeping with John-Boy, while Cora and Ham take John and
Olivia’s bedroom as John sleeps with the boys and Olivia sleeps with the girls.
Job asks Jason the age of Mary Ellen, but when Jason asks why he wants to know
Job only swaggers out of the room. After supper, the two families listen to
“George Burns and Gracie Allen” on the radio. With laughter in the background
John-Boy writes in his journal: “Seems to me that
using past failures is the seed for tomorrow’s defeats is a poor waste of the
garden of life that God has given us. As far as I can tell he has just wandered
from one place to another and never made a go of it anywhere, and Job is just
following in his footsteps.”
The next day John-Boy catches Mary Ellen and
Job smoking “rabbit tobacco” cigarettes in the shed. Soon, Olivia also finds
them and punishes Mary Ellen with ten Bible verses. Job thinks John-Boy tattled
on them, giving him a hostile look. John, Ham, and Erin walk into the store
where John tells Ike the bacon Ham gave them must have came from his store.
But, Ham says he got the bacon in Tennessee, telling them they must have Ike’s
smoking secret. Yancy tells John that he just shot quail on John-Boy’s Meadow,
as Ham steals a tobacco pouch while Erin watches. Off to the side John tells
Ike he will do electrical work at the store in exchange for groceries, in order
to pay for some bacon. As John and Ham walk out, Ham presents the tobacco to
John. Ike and Yancy talk about how generous John and Olivia are to friends and
relatives.
Ben works on a model airplane when Ham asks
to show him John-Boy’s Meadow. Cora combs her hair as Olivia comments on its
beauty, while Cora says how lovely her quilts look. Erin asks John-Boy what to
do when she sees someone do something wrong. John-Boy irritably tells her to
confront the person. John leaves in Ham’s truck in order to work at Ike’s store
(waiting on his truck parts). Ham looks on while Grandpa hoes the garden. Zeb
suggests he shovel manure onto Olivia’s petunias. Mary Ellen fishes as Job
walks up, suggesting that they “fool around”. Mary Ellen tells him that she’ll
hit him with a rock. Erin tells Ham that she saw him steal tobacco. Ham states
that she is being disrespectful and threatens to tell her parents. Job reads
the passage in John-Boy’s journal about his father and confronts him about it.
John-Boy tells him that he has the right to say or write anything. Job calls
him a “panty-waist” for not fighting him.
That night John returns home after rewiring
at Ike’s store. Olivia says that something is wrong and wonders if the
employment letter will ever arrive (with the end of the month already past). In
the bedroom, Cora asks Ham if he has thought what they will do if the letter
doesn’t arrive. Ham suggests that they farm John-Boy’s Meadow, but Cora says
that they need to go someplace else and not give up when times get rough.
In the morning Ham walks downstairs after
sleeping late. Grandma tells him to pick up groceries and (strongly) implies to
check the mail again. As Grandpa and the children pick berries Zeb tells
John-Boy that fighting Job would not have solved the problem. John-Boy says he
didn’t fight him because of being afraid. Grandpa states, “there are some things
that you have to fight for”. As Olivia wrings out clothes John and Ham return
with groceries, but without the letter. As the children return John-Boy walks
to milk Chance. He overhears Mary Ellen resisting Job’s advances. John-Boy
intervenes, and fights with Job. As Job swings a pitchfork toward John-Boy,
Grandpa pushes the pitchfork away, grabs both boys by the scruffs of their
necks, and walks them into the house. When John-Boy and Job refuse to talk
Grandpa says he believes the fight had to do with what John-Boy wrote in his
journal. With everything out in the open, Cora decides it is time for her
family to move on. Ham tries to convince his wife that she inherited part of
John-Boy’s Meadow when her father died. Cora says her father had “sand in his shoes”
like him, and sold the land to Zeb. Cora tells her husband that they are
through begging and will succeed on their own. While Ham and Job pack
belongings onto the truck Cora talks about making a life similar to the one
Olivia has here. She says goodbye to John, telling him that they helped more
than they know.
"We
heard from Cora a few times after they left. They settled finally in up-state
New York in a place called the Mohawk valley and they did all right farming.
Grandpa used to say that Ham must have learned one of the Walton secrets in
spite of himself - that the world wasn't like the song said "just a bowl
of cherries" but that you had to go out and climb the tree, and bark your
shins a few times doing it, and pick those cherries yourself".
Mary
Ellen: John-Boy?
John-Boy:
Huh?
Mary
Ellen: I'm much obliged to you.
John-Boy:
Goodnight, Mary Ellen.
Mary
Ellen: Tonight I stuck my pin in my geography book and it came down on
Larkspur California. Wouldn't that be a fair place to see?
John-Boy:
I guess so. Goodnight Mary Ellen.
Mary
Ellen: Goodnight.
Notes:
Charlottesville is said to contain twenty thousand residents.
John-Boy is seventeen years old, Jason is fifteen, and Mary Ellen is thirteen.
Cora is John’s cousin. Her father, Matt, was Zeb’s brother. Matt Walton was mentioned in The Typewriter (season one, episode five).
The Denby family lost their Kansas farm to the “Dust Bowl”, and then settled in Upper New York State, at a place called the Mohawk Valley.
Matt Walton sold his share of Walton’s Mountain (including the land now called John-Boy’s Meadow) to his brother Zeb.
The Walton’s have an Aunt Bea in Washington DC. It is not known what side of the family she is on.
More information on George Burns and Gracie Allen can be
found at: (television show) http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/G/htmlG/georgeburns/gerogeburns.htm and (radio show) http://40sradio.us.nstempintl.com/burnsallen.htm.
NOTE: This episode was won an award given by the Directors Guild of America for the Best Direction in a Dramatic Series.
Also appearing:
Ike Godsey (Joe Conley), Yancy Tucker (Robert Donner), Cora Denby (Joy MacIntosh), Hamilton ‘Ham’ Denby (Warren Vanders), Job Denby (Ken Wolger).
(synopsis written by William Atkins and edited by Arthur Dungate)