Elmer Miles was a student at Walnut Grove School, and appeared in the Little House On the Prairie Season 8 episode "For the Love of Nancy."
Background[]
Elmer was an 11-year-old boy who comes from a farming family that had recently settled in the Walnut Grove area. He has a younger brother, Jess, who also attends Walnut Grove School.
Elmer suffered from childhood obesity, which made him the target of cruel teasing and bullying. He is a good-hearted boy and is brilliant in his academic studies but also naive, sometimes not outwardly realizing that the bullying he is the target of is hurtful, especially as he tries his hardest to make friends with his classmates. This carries over to Walnut Grove School, where several of the older boys – an older boy named Joey is the main ringleader – pick on him and scrawl cruel drawings on the chalkboard (including one where Joey drew a picture of a pig, with Elmer's name and an arrow pointing at the pig). Elmer has a voracious appetite, although this is eventually seen to be, at least in part, at his mother's insistence that he clean his plate at every meal.
Of all people, however, Nancy Oleson seems to take a liking to Elmer, and seems to develop a crush on Elmer, especially when she sees him pushing around Joey or even her older brother, Willie. In the early going, Willie and even Albert Ingalls aren't exactly very nice either, but not to the outright vicious degree Joey is. Knowing Willie – who maintains a healthy weight – also has a big appetite, Joey convinces the two to engage in an eating showdown ... which Elmer wins!
Nancy, meantime, begins sweet talking Elmer into doing her bidding, including getting her way at recess, doing her homework and even her chores at the Oleson's Mercantile and the restaurant and hotel. Willie eventually takes note of this and, backing off his own attitudes toward Elmer – just a night earlier, he had found humor in watching Elmer eat when invited to the Olesons to eat dinner – takes him aside and asks him point blank why he's friends with Nancy in the first place, since she's nothing short of manipulative and mean. Elmer just shrugs it off and says he enjoys having a friend for once ... and a mighty pretty girlfriend at that! Willie then enlists Albert to help teach Nancy a harsh lesson ... and it will center on her science project.
In the meantime, Dr. Baker has been working with Elmer on his wellness, encouraging him to lose weight and giving him advice. Eventually, and little by little, Elmer does begin losing weight.
In the meantime, Nancy turns in her science project and realizes it's been switched! She thinks Elmer is the guilty party and, after school, screams at him that he's nothing more than a stupid, fat oaf and she wants nothing more to do with him. Elmer runs off in tears, as Albert and Willie look on in stunned silence.
At home, Elmer finishes an essay he – along with the rest of the class – was assigned about friendship. At school, he talks about his struggles in making friends and that being friends means sticking up for one another and showing kindness and mercy, and that at Walnut Grove School, he hasn't seen that at all. He then announces he's dropping out of school and leaves ... leaving his teacher, Laura Ingalls Wilder, and the rest of the class in stunned silence, reflecting on Elmer's words.
Later that afternoon, the schoolchildren visit the Miles residence. Led by Albert, and then one by one Willie, Joey, and James and Cassandra Ingalls, give an emotional apology, saying that they like having him in class and that he is a meaningful part of them, and also that his wisdom on friendship really hit home. They ask him to come back to school ... and Elmer – with some encouragement from his father – fully accepts the apology and forgives them. (Nancy also went along, likely at the others' behest and hoping she would learn something, but says nothing meaningful.)
In the final act, Nancy has not learned anything at all. When she gets into a fight with Cassandra over a ball and sees Elmer coming to school, she asks him to intervene. However, Elmer immediately declines, telling her point blank that from now on, she's going to have to fight her own battles. Nancy runs off in tears as Elmer does a victory lap ... and (after the fade-out, presumably) joins his classmates in a pre-school day baseball game!
Behind of Scenes[]
Elmer Miles was played by J.Brennan Smith.