Ed was a sixteen-year-old conservative Mennonite farm boy growing up on the family farm in Central

Kansas in 1884. One day, while riding Copper, his well-trained and beloved horse, to get the cows home

for milking, Ed noticed something behind a sand plum thicket. Not getting a very good look at what it

was behind the thicket, his curiosity drove him back there after the milking was done. Whatever it was

behind the thicket left a small pile of sand plum seeds. It had to be a human because most animals

would eat the seeds along with the plums. Ed was determined to find who it was stealing their sand

plums. The next day, Ed went a little earlier to get the cows home in order to catch this sand plum thief.

Ed was not prepared for what he found. A beautiful Native American girl about his own age, the most

beautiful girl he had ever seen, was the sand plum thief.

When she saw Ed watching her, she gave him a smile that would have melted the heart of any sixteen-

year-old American boy, but she quickly ran off and hid from him. This did not deter Ed from making

plans to come back the next day to see the beautiful girl. He had just one problem though. He was a

Mennonite, and Mennonites were to associate with their own people only. How could he possibly tell

his parents that the sand plum thief was a beautiful Native American girl, and he was going back the

next day to see her again?

Will this develop into an interracial relationship, something unheard of in Mennonite culture at that

time, or will it lead only to heartbreak for two young people?

--Keith Albrecht

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