There's a little house on a humble street;
With a little porch where the children meet,
And when school is out
You can hear them shout,
An army glad, as they race about;
To horn and drum
They boldly come,
And they tramp the grass till it's brown and bare
And the passers-by
With a careful eye
Must watch for the wagons rolling there.

Now many a house on this street is prim,
With a grass plot neat and the windows trim,
And a lovely sight
Is the garden bright,
But it's all too fine for a paper fight;
So the children go
To a place they know,
Where the maid won't fly to the door and say:
“Get out in the street
With your dirty feet!
Don't you know that I washed that porch to-day?”

There is always a house on every street
That is known as the place where the children meet.
You can pick it out
As you walk about,
For it's there that the youngsters laugh and shout;
And the grass is bare
And the toys are there
And the wire fence sags where the lads have swung,
And the paint is nicked
Where their feet have kicked
And a window shows where a ball was flung.

And I think as I walk on that humble street,
Let mine be the house where the children meet;
Let mine be the place
Where they romp and race,
I can open that door with a smiling face.
Let this army tramp
In my yard, and camp
So long as they will, for the years roll on
And the day draws near
When the silence here
Will tell to the world that our babes have gone.