F.N. Monjo has written a panoramic story describing one year in the life of a Pennsylvania Dutch farm boy and his family in 1820. The reader will meet the Schimmelpfennig family--Mutti, (mother) Vati, (father) and the eight boys and three girls, not to mention Willi Stolzfuss who drove the Conestoga wagons and married Anna Marie. Last, but not least, there is the distelfink bird, the Pennsylvania Dutch symbol of happiness.