The episode we watched in class begins by Opie riding on a pretend horse named Blackie. This is all in good fun, but when Opie comes home with a hatchet from the woods, Andy asks him where he got it. Opie tells him that Mr. McBeevee gave it to him. Andy and Barney had never heard of a Mr. McBeevee, and Andy doesn't believe that he actually exists, so he tells Opie to take it back.
Opie does this, but before he leaves from Mr. McBeevee, who actually exists, Opie receives a coin from him. He runs back to help out at the station, and when he gets there, he shows Andy and Barney the coin. He also gives them a description of Mr. McBeevee. He says that he walks around in the treetops, jingles when he walks, and that he has twelve extra hands. Here, Opie is referring to Mr. McBeevee's work. He is a telephone repairman (walks in tree tops) and his repair tools (jingle and twelve extra hands).
Then Andy takes Opie into the woods to be show to Mr. McBeevee, but he has left to go help out at another site. Andy takes Opie home to punish him, but instead, after talking to Opie about it, believes him. Barney can't believe that Andy actually believes in Mr. McBeevee, but Andy says, "No... no... no. I believe in Opie." Andy then goes to the woods and says "Mr. McBeevee", who answers him by climbing down the tree. Andy is very excited to meet him and they become quick friends.
This episode has helped me to understand this section more fully than I did before I watched it. At first, I thought that Andy had blind faith in Opie, but after talking about it in class, I now know that Andy have very good reason to believe in Opie. He has faith that his son is telling the truth. He believes in him and trusts that he is telling the truth based on the fact that Opie does not lie to Andy. Having faith in a person is very difficult sometimes, such as Andy's faith in Opie, even though the facts that Andy knew did not seem reasonable. But he believed in his son nonetheless. Andy gave Opie the choice between telling the "truth" and saying that Mr. McBeevee didn't exist, or being whipped. Opie, though he knew what the consequences would be, still chose to say that Mr. McBeevee was real. He had a choice that was all his own. Since he has free will, he was able to decide which one he thought was right, not what his father thought was right. Andy also has free will. He could have beaten Opie for saying that Mr. McBeevee was real or he could have believed in him. He chose to believe in Opie. I learned that it can be very hard to believe in someone when you know that the facts you know don't seem logical at all, such as Jesus rising from the dead. This would seem impossible, but we still choose to believe it. I would say that this episode of Andy and Opie was a good example of faith because Andy believes in Opie and his belief is supported by reasons.
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