She was by birth the third daughter, who is always called Harpstenah
among the Sioux. Her sisters were married, and she had seen but fourteen
summers when old Cloudy Sky, the medicine man, came to her parents to
buy her for his wife.
They dared not refuse him, for they were afraid to offend a medicine
man, and a war chief besides. Cloudy Sky was willing to pay them well
for their child. So she was told that her fate for life was determined
upon. Her promised bridegroom had seen the snows of eighty winters.
It was a bright night in the "moon for strawberries." [Footnote: The
month of June.] Harpstenah had wept herself to sleep, and she had reason
too, for her young companions had laughed at her, and told her that she
was to have for a husband an old man without a nose. And it was true,
though Cloudy Sky could once have boasted of a fine aquiline. He had
been drinking freely, and picked a quarrel with one of his sworn
friends. After some preliminary blows, Cloudy Sky seized his antagonist
and cut his ear sadly, but in return he had his nose bitten off.
She had wept the more when her mother told her that in four days she was
to go to the teepee of her husband.
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