Mario’s Duck

Mario had a little pet duck
They couldn't afford a dog or a cat
But a duck needs only scraps to eat
Though scraps were the family's principal meat
Mario's father was God knows where
After a drunk he would stagger in
Out of work and in despair
To brood and curse and be gone again

Mother washed fine clothes every day
For the rich people, for little pay
Seven kids she raised alone
And Mario was the youngest one
This was in Chile some years ago
When the people were poor as they are now
Allende tried to change things around
But the CIA's Junta shot him down

The story that I am telling you
Happened in Chile a while ago
Mario walking a dusty road
Looking for rags or a scrap of food
But there as he walked along his way
Somebody's duck that had gone astray
Followed him down around the bend
And took the boy for his brother and friend

The farmer laughed and let him go
But Mario's mother said, "Oh, no!
We can't afford pets in the barrio."
"I'll find him his food," said Mario
Everyone smiled at the funny two
The little duck went where the boy would go
They played all day by the cabin door
And slept on the pallet on the floor

As if there weren't troubles to spare
Alicia gets pregnant, Alicia the Fair
And how can they marry with no place to go?
There are no more rooms in the barrio
But mama manages everything
A wedding dress and a wedding ring
Two satin sheets that got lost somehow
In the washing, become the wedding gown

The wedding ring is a silver band
That once graced Mamacita's hand
And a room is made out of boards and tin
Built onto the hut that they all lived in
The wedding bouquet was Mario's find
Field flowers of every kind
Pretty and bright and arranged with taste
To hide Alicia's swelling waist

And what did they have for the wedding feast
For the bride and the guests and the village priest?
It was Mario's duck, with the feathers gone
Crowning the table, roasted brown!
What a strange wedding they had that day
Eating and drinking and all so gay
And Mario, crying, up in the tree
Throwing rocks at the company