Little House on the Prairie/Headscratchers


 * Recently, I saw the two-hour 'May We Make Them Proud' for the first time in over two decades. For the uninitiated, this is the episode where a fire at the School For The Blind claims the lives of recurring/supporting character Alice Hanvey, and Mary's infant child. What really bothers me is that both deaths could have easily been prevented. When the others discover the fire in the basement which is spreading out of control, they immediately rush upstairs. Adam (Mary's husband) and the others pull Mary away from the baby's crib and drag her out. Not ONE of them even thinks to grab the baby -- and I, for one, would think they'd be sure to grab the baby first. No, instead, the baby's an afterthought -- after just about everyone else is evacuated from the building, Alice goes back for the baby, and as a result she and the baby die. Much of the rest of the episode deals with everyone's grief, and Albert's guilt over causing the tragedy (he and a friend dropped a lit pipe in the basement). But no one shows any sign of guilt over just forgetting the baby like that. What's going on here? Is there some sort of Values Dissonance here, or are characters just plain not doing what I think they should have done in that situation?
 * I've wondered why, when Laura and Mary were young, Ma was so insistent they only wear certain colors based on the color of her hair. Laura's clothes were always red or pink because she was a brunette, and Mary's were always blue because she was blonde. I've never heard of that convention anywhere else, and I wonder if it's something specific to Ma's family rather than a widespread fashion rule. Laura mentions in On the Banks of Plum Creek that it had to be that way, but not why.
 * I think fashion "rules" were a lot stricter in the 1800's than today. Fashion books (what we would call magazines today) came over from Paris, and ladies copied the pictures. Bonnets are out this year? You better convert that bonnet into a hat. Hoops are narrower? Skirts are longer? ...And it was that way through the 1950's. I'm not just making this up, by the way. I've seen it referenced in Anne of Green Gables, in one place where Anne says she can never wear pink, and in another where Mrs. Lynde chooses a nice brown gloria for a dress that will suit Anne perfectly. It's also referenced in the book version of Gone With the Wind, where the ladies of Atlanta mob Rhett to tell them what the fashionable Parisiennes are wearing (they were cut off from Europe for several months by this time because of the Yankee blockade), and then, after the War, Scarlett sees Emmie Slattery in new clothes and mentally takes note of what the new year's fashions are. So yeah, Ma Ingalls had very ladylike aspirations despite her poverty, and it would be in keeping with the times and her personality to be worried about things like that.
 * Also, it's not uncommon even now for families to color code their children to cut down on rivalry. If Laura always wears the red hair ribbons and Mary always wears the blue ones, you don't have a fight in the morning about who gets which color, and it's obvious which ribbons are whose. The question is if Carrie and Grace got colors too.