What happens when you write:

    begin
      entry.at('description').indx_txt
    rescue NoMethodError
    end

? With the generic rescue you will always get nil back. With #andand you get nil from nil and a NoMethodError from objects, which is usually what you want.

Also, if #index_text is correctly spelled but it raises a NoMethodError, you're silently discarding it again. For this reason, I avoid silently discarding exceptions even when I think I know what I'm doing. If I'm wrong, I'm in a lot of trouble...