In 1847 a group of Choctaw Indians collected $170 toward the relief of Ireland’s potato famine. This story is a fictionalized account of that little-known real event. Choona, now an old man, relates this story from his boyhood. Although 14-year-old Choona knew that his people had been forced to march from their homelands in Mississippi to Indian Territory, now the state of Oklahoma, the adults did not speak about this tragic event to their children. Then, during a tribal meeting, where the Choctaw meet to discuss sending relief to the Irish, Choona’s great-grandmother relates the terrible truth about the winter of the march — the starvation, the freezing, the deaths. She urges her people to help the Irish who are now going through their own “trail of tears.” At first Choona is so angry at the Europeans that he votes against helping them. But soon he, too, is able to put his anger aside as he realizes that through this act of giving the Choctaw will feel less helpless. In facing their past, they are able to move forward.