The Little Boy Next Door

***Recently, while going through the family home after losing my mother to Covid, I came across the writing of my great-grandmother, Minnie Louise Bumphrey, who was a published writer and poet. Over the next few days I will be sharing her works on my blog. ***

This piece was written about a neighbor boy named Pete Fischer:

He was just a little fellow that I liked from the first day and from my kitchen window I would watch him play.

He made a house up in a tree and, oh, the fun he had.

I thought as I was watching him, it’s fine to be a lad.

The other boys who played with him were not as fine as he.

He really was not used to boys that I could plainly see.

He enjoyed fun but was not tough; when they hurt him I got sore.

For he seemed almost like my boy, that little boy next door.

*** Originally written by Minnie Louise Bumphrey of Kewanee, Illinois.***