It's the lonesomest house you ever saw,
This big gray house where I stay.
I don't call it living at all, at all,
Since my mother's gone away.

Only four weeks now-it seems a year-
Gone to heaven, the preacher said,
And my heart is just broke awaiting her,
And my eyes are always red.

I stay out of doors till I'm almost froze,
'Cause every identical room
Seems empty enough to scare a boy,
And packed to the door with gloom.

Oh, but I hate to come in to my meals,
And her not there in her place,
Pouring the tea, and passing the things,
With that lovin' shine on her face!

But night-time is worse. I creep up the stair
And to bed as still 's a mouse,
And cry in my pillow, it seems so hard
To stay in this old gray house!

And nobody giving me good-night hugs,
Or smoothing my hair back-so;
Things a boy makes fun of before his chums,
But things that he likes, you know.

There's no one to go to when things go wrong-
Oh, she was so safe and sure!
There wasn't a thing could tackle a boy
That she couldn't up and cure.

There's lots of women, it seems to me,
That wouldn't be missed so much,
The women whose boys are 'most growed up,
And old maid aunties, and such.

I can't understand it at all, at all,
Why on earth she should have to go,
And leave me here in this old gray house,
Needin' an' wantin' her so!

Oh, the very lonesomest thing of all
In the wide, wide world to-day
Is a big boy of twelve whose heart's just broke
'Cause his mother's gone away!