The new schoolteacher, Carol, arrives in Hooterville and Eb's heart is aflutter. Eb's current local girlfriend(Darlene) wants to go to the dance which Eb asked Carol to. After seeking advice from Oliver and Mr. Haney, Eb hatches a plan to do double duty and take both girls. Oliver feels the wrath of Darlene's daddy, when Eb lies that he has a wife in Racine, Wisconsin. All works out, when Carol's out-of-town boyfriend arrives to take her to the dance and Eb gets to escort Darlene.

Eb learns that $538 is not enough to build a house on the two acres the Douglases gave to him and Darlene. His schemes to raise a down payment include turning the Douglas farm into a bed and breakfast, a dump, and a trailer camp.

Wanting a better paying career, Eb enters the accounting program of a correspondence school. When they mistakenly enroll him in their acting course, Eb believes it's destiny calling. Despite a disastrous attempt at makeup, he studies by dramatizing everyday events; a boring meal becomes dinner with King Louis XIV with Lisa as his serving "wrench".

Eb is sent packing when Darlene's dad learns he proposed to is daughter with a watch fob instead of a ring. Lisa gives Eb the $2000 ring Oliver used to get engaged to her and everyone is happy--until the father has the ring appraised.

With just two weeks until their wedding, Eb and Darlene still don't have a location for the ceremony. Mr. Haney's first suggestion, to have it for free at a car wash, doesn't wash. His second scheme, which comes complete with a household of furniture, gets Eb's signature on the dotted line. Darlene's father, however, refuses to let her get married on television in a furniture emporium's front window.