And now
cry--you are a woman--but it is time for us to be gone."
The son lingered--he could not bear to see his mother's tears. He knew
the sorrows she had endured, he knew too (for she had often assured him)
that should harm come to him she would not survive it. The knife she
carried in her belt was ready to do its deadly work. She implored him to
stay, calling to his mind the deaths of his father and of his murdered
brothers; she bade him remember the tears they had shed together, and
the promises he had often made, never to add to the trials she
had endured.
It was all in vain; for his friend, impatient to be gone, laughed at him
for listening to the words of his mother. "Is not a woman a dog?" he
said. "Do you intend to stay all night to hear your mother talk? If so,
tell me, that I may seek another comrade--one who fears neither a white
man nor a woman."
This appeal had its effect, for the young men left the teepee together.
They were soon out of sight, while Harpstenah sat weeping, and swaying
her body to and fro, lamenting the hour she was born. "There is no
sorrow in the land of spirits," she cried; "oh! that I were dead!"
The party left the village that night to procure the whiskey.
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