Michelle Downey

Poor financial conditions influence the Ingalls family to move to Winoka when Mary goes there to teach at the Blind School. They meet Albert, an orphan who Charles forms an attachment to, even though Laura catches him stealing from the hotel that Charles was managing and Caroline was running the kitchen/dining room for.

To keep her mind off Almanzo's extended absence, Laura pitches in with Mary and Adam's new blind school in Sleepy Eye. Meanwhile, in an attempt to conceal a secret from Laura and her family, Almanzo falls dangerously ill. Back in Walnut Grove, Nellie struggles to reveal her true feelings to the one man who has changed her life.

While Mary is going to teach at the Blind School in Winoka, and since financially they can't make a living in Walnut Grove the rest of the Ingalls family goes to Winoka, too. Charles gets a job managing a hotel and Caroline runs the Kitchen/Dining room. They make the acquaintance of an orphan, Albert who befriends the Ingalls.

Trying to convince Tom Carlin, blinded by a childhood bout with the measles, that he can lead a productive life, Adam Kendall battles Tom's bitter, skeptical father and is unexpectedly aided by the underdog Winoka Warriors, who have just lost their star player to a rival football team.

Laura befriends a classmate named Amelia Bevins, who is ashamed of her obese father. When the man realizes how much pain he is causing his wife and daughter, he leaves them temporarily for a "business trip" that will change their family forever.