Chapter Text
"Charles?! Caroline?!" Hester-Sue quickly pulls the horses to a halt in front of the Ingalls' home, with all the commotion, Caroline opens the door.
"Hester-Sue, what's wrong?" she asks, slightly panicked.
"It's time! I'll see you there." she then clicks her tongue and the horses set off back to the blind school.
The family quickly arrives at the blind school and burst through the front door just as Doctor Baker walks down the stairs. He stops halfway down the stairs and looks to Charles and Caroline.
"Hello Grandpa, Grandma." he nods to them with their new names. "It's a girl."
"It's a girl!" they say in celebration before quickly climbing the stairs.
Doctor Baker opens the door. "You've got company, Mary."
Caroline enters the room and her eyes immediately fall on Mary, Adam, and as Adam gets off the bed, her eyes find the new little bundle in Mary's arms.
"Hi Mary!" she says as she enters the room, and she excitedly takes Adam into a hug. "Adam!"
As the rest of the family enters the room, it fills with a soft "awww" from everyone. Mary grins, delicately stroking her daughter's face.
"Well, who do we have here?" Charles asks. Adam grins and directs his question to Mary.
"Would you like to introduce her, or can I?"
"I will." she smiles. "Everyone, I'd like you to meet our daughter, Amy Caroline Holbrook Kendall."
Caroline cups a hand to her mouth and turns to her father, who's been here this whole time, who practically needs to be held by Charles at the news.
"Holbrook?" he asks, his voice coming out shaky.
"You're her family too, Grandpa." Mary beams.
”The name lives on…” he says, quietly to himself.
"Can I hold her?" Caroline then asks. Mary nods and carefully hands baby Amy to Caroline, who immediately gushes at her new granddaughter. "Oh Mary, Adam, she's beautiful! Just beautiful!"
A month later, the blind school hosts Walnut Grove's first annual Charity Picnic. Folks from town are chatting and eating, and Adam and Caroline walk down the steps of the school, still deep in conversation. But their conversation is cut off when the distinct voice of Mrs. Oleson is heard calling for Adam.
"Oh Adam!"
"Yes, Mrs. Oleson?" he asks, seeming unenthused at the sound of her voice.
"Oh it just amazes me he's always able to recognize my voice, even in a crowd!"
"Some voices are easier than others." he says honestly, Caroline does her very best not to laugh at his comment.
"Oh, you know, Ms. Wilder and I were just talking and I just wondered when you were starting on the expansion?"
"We're waiting until classes end, so probably in two to three weeks."
"Oh." Mrs. Oleson says, disappointed. "I must say, with the school getting bigger, do you think I should get a bigger plaque?"
Though she doesn't wait for an answer as she immediately runs away, towards Mr. Oleson.
"Oh Nels! Nels!"
Clay, Albert's school friend, rushes to him in excitement.
"I got it!" he says holding up a clay pipe. "It's still full of tobacco too!"
Albert hesitates. "I'm not sure I want to do this anymore, Clay. I smoked my Pa's pipe once and got awful sick."
"You won't with this one, everyone knows clay pipes are better for you anyways. Let's go in to the basement where no one will see us."
They quickly run inside and down to the basement, Albert then pulls a match out of his pocket and lights the pipe. They each take a turn puffing the pipe before immediately coughing and shaking their heads.
"I was right, this was a bad idea."
"Oh come on, that was only the first puff, we'll get better at it."
But as they go to take their second puffs, the basement door opens and Hester-Sue walks down the steps before stopping as she realizes they're there.
"What on earth are you two doing down here?" she asks as Albert covers the spot where he hid the pipe.
"Oh Hester-Sue you scared us!" Albert says, trying to sound nonchalant. "We just came down here to hide from Carrie, she's always finding us and asking to play with us and we just needed a minute."
"Well... will dessert prompt you to come back out?" she asks and the boys faces light up.
"Yes ma'am!" they both say excitedly, running up the steps past her. Hester-Sue grabs what she needed from the basement and follows them upstairs, just missing the smoke that has started lifting from the box the pipe was set in.
As night falls, everyone has gone home, except for Alice Garvey, who promised Mary she would help clean up after the picnic.
Adam, Hester-Sue, and Alice sit at one of the tables in the classroom, exhausted from the whole day.
“Alice, you know you’re more than welcome to stay in one of our rooms for the night.” Adam says while stretching.
“I appreciate it, but Jonathan would be here anytime. Unless he and Andy keep playing checkers until dawn.”
Her last comment gets a small laugh out of the three of them.
Hester-Sue, looking around, turns to Adam. "Is Mary still putting the children to bed?" she asks.
"She's probably trying to get Amy to settle, I'll go see if I can be of any help." he says getting up out of his chair and heads up to their room, where Mary is gently rocking Amy in her cradle.
"Oh what strong little fingers you have." Mary quietly says to Amy, who despite the rocking does not appear at all tired. "You know you're squishing me? Do you know that? Huh?"
She hears Adam enter and turns to him. "Adam, this little girl of yours is going to be a strong one. It makes sense though, she gets it from her grandma. Just feel her grip!"
Adam smiles as he sits on the bed beside Mary. "Oh don't you go hurting your mother now. If you want to wrestle you can do it with me."
"Adam," Mary says. "wrestling isn't very ladylike."
"She's got farmer's blood, she'll want to let the energy go somewhere. Besides, you weren't fooling, she has got a grip! You don't give yourself enough credit, she must take after her mommy."
Mary smiles. "Thanks."
"We're having tea downstairs, do you want some?"
"In a few minutes, I've got to change our daughter first."
"Alright." he gets up off the bed.
"See you, muscles!"
"You talking to her or me?"
"Both." he chuckles. "See you downstairs."
As the door shuts Mary turns to Amy, who's still wide awake in her crib. "Don't you go listening to your father, I do not have big muscles. No, I don't! But you can grow up to be as strong as you'd like. Your father was right about you having farmer's blood."
Noticing that Amy has settled herself, Mary leans over to the music box on the side table. "Do you want your music?" she asks as the music box starts playing Braham's Lullaby.
Mary makes her way downstairs and in to the classroom where Adam and Alice are still sitting.
As Hester-Sue brings in the teapot and cups for them she sniffs the air and looks to the three of them. "Does it smell smokey to any of you?"
The three others sniff the air and a wave of concern washes over all of them.
"I might have left the stove on, let me go check." Hester-Sue says as she sets down the teapot and cups and quickly walks back to the kitchen. As she gets there she realizes that the stove was in fact off and the smell was not coming from the kitchen.
Puzzled, she turns back around and starts making her way back to the classroom, but her attention is caught by smoke pouring out from under the basement door. "What on earth?" she says to herself as she opens the basement door. Panic quickly builds in her as the opened basement hits her with more smoke and fire illuminates the basement.
"Mary?! Adam?! Fire!!" she yells.
Adam races to her and feels the fire's heat on his skin.
"Fire!" he calls back to Mary and Alice.
"Quickly, we need to get upstairs and get the children out before the whole place falls!"
The four adults rush upstairs, but not before Hester-Sue closes the door, stalling the fire.
As they get upstairs, Adam calls out directions.
"Hester-Sue, Alice, get the children out of bed and down to the front."
"What are you going to do?" Mary asks him.
"I've got to collect as much of our stuff as I can." he answers.
"I'll help-" Mary starts before Adam cuts her off.
"No! We don't have much time, just take Amy and get outside!"
"Oh God, Amy!" Mary says, panicked. She quickly turns herself around and enters their room, waking Amy up as she picks her up and rushes her downstairs.
Hester-Sue and Alice gather all the children and start leading them outside, but Alice's attention is caught by a door banging.
"Help! I'm stuck in here!" a small voice cries out from the bathroom.
Alice rushes to the bathroom door. "Stand back!"
"Okay." the small voice says.
Alice throws her entire body at the door, the hit was so hard she sees stars, but knows she doesn’t have much time to get the door down. Luckily for her, the door only takes one more hit before being thrown off its hinges and Alice runs to the child, takes his hand, and quickly runs down to where everyone else is.
"Alice?" Mary asks as Alice returns the boy to the group of children. "Where's Adam?"
"I... I didn't see him." she says honestly.
"Take Amy, I need to get him." Mary says trying to hand Alice the baby, but she won't take her.
"Mary, no!" Alice says, grabbing Mary by the biceps. "You've got to stay here with the baby."
"No!" Mary says, starting to panic. "I have to get Adam, I have to find him. I won't leave him in there!"
"Mary, no!" Alice says again, not letting her grip on her go.
With all their commotion, neither of them hear Adam as he stumbles out of the school and on to the grass, the possessions he was holding scattering to the ground.
"Adam!" Hester-Sue calls out, rushing to him. "Are you alright?"
"I'm fine!" Adam coughs. "Where's Mary and the baby? Are they okay?"
"They're with Alice-" she doesn't get out any more than that before Adam picks himself and his belongings up and rushes to his wife and child.
"Adam?!" Mary asks as he gets to them.
"Yeah, I'm right here, Mary."
"You were gone for so long, what if something happened to you?"
"I had to get as much as I could." he says, his breathing still wheezy. "Are you and Amy okay?"
"She's okay, We're okay." Mary says reassuringly. "What were you even looking for?"
"I got as much money as I could, some of our clothes, and our marriage certificate."
"Adam..." she says softly, before the sounds of the blind school crashing to the ground in front of her stops her from continuing.
"Oh God!" Adam says, turning to the sounds of wood falling.
"The school!" Mary shrieks.
"We're alright, that's all that matters now." Adam says taking Mary and Amy into a comforting hug.