| In a small town where all knew all, wondered a peasant lady nobody knew,
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| But her only friend was a young boy, brought her hot tea and leftover stew,
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| In those burnin' wintry Decembers, he’d pick dirty pennies up off the cold
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| street,
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| And while his mother was out Christmas shopping, he’d say, «Come on in,
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| warm your feet.»
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| As long as you share with me stories, so she spoke on the product of war,
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| My mother never knew who she could be, as my father lay drunk on the floor,
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| And she spoke of the cart that she wheeled, had keys with no locks,
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| and guitars with no stings, and a puzzle that could never be finished,
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| But this is my home, and these broken things are…
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| But the boy went on to be taught in the schools,
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| to not talk to strangers and don’t feed the fools,
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| Grew older and further and over-forgot,
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| as she was forced to move from lot to lot to lot,
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| She said, «I guess it was much in his nature to become an Enforcer of Law,
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| My old friend’s got a gun to protect me from the rock-tossing drunks from the
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| bars.»
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| «Oh, he seemed like the sort to help others, so I’ll find him while he’s on the
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| beat,
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| and say 'Remember me, I’m the old lady you’d give the pennies you found on the
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| street?'»
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| When she found him she saw not the young boy who dug for the roots of her junk,
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| She came face-to-face with a stern, vacant soldier, grinning and spinning a
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| club,
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| He said, «Don't you know that you can’t be here?
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| You’ll hurt business and scare away the kids.
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| Go wander around in some other town; |
| get out or I’m taking you in.»
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| «But officer, I fondly remember you —
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| young boy who would give me the leftover stew,
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| would take me inside to the warm fire coals,
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| and those hundreds of pennies bought me all these clothes.»
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| It’s against the law to peddle
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| It’s against the law to eat
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| It’s against the law to have nothing more than the shoes full of holes on your
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| feet
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| And now they’ve put bars across the park benches, so I guess it’s illegal to
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| sleep
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| They buried something inside of you, Officer
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| Into your cold heart, dig deep
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| And you’ll see that it’s me
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| And here I’ll be, nothing new to me
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| I’ll be heartbroken and cold, frozen and alone
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| My coffin was a dumpster and I didn’t even know
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| But while out on the beat, he looked down to the street,
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| and he saw a dirty penny heads up at hid feet
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| And it made him think of an old tall-tale of an old woman who pushed 'round a
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| cart,
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| And the boy who fed her and helped her, knew he shoulda deep in his heart
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| …But where did he hear that old tall-tale?
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| But hey, what a story to spread
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| So he told it to his own growing boy, once in a while before bed |