Scratching through frosted windowpanes two hundred years old,

The little girl looks out upon the snow laden yard and dirt road,

With chin in hands and elbows resting upon the window ledge wide,

She stands up straight as she wiggles her foot on the right side.

The tire tracks her daddy's truck made on the dirt road were alone

As she peers across the expanse of the Pennsylvania farm she calls home

She strokes her dark and curly hair, and then happily shakes her head

As her eyes focus on the barn that was painted a deep, dark red.

Eyes wide with wonder, her focus was on the cloudless blue of the sky,

And then her wooden swing where a scarlet Cardinal flapped his wings to fly.

The bird made her think of the hen house with chickens and their nests,

And her mom helping her gather the eggs; she did her careful best.

She gazes to the side of her home's thick brick walls and down to the fence line.

Where the Angus bull roams in the pasture while awaiting feeding time.

Into the bitter wind, her mother brings out a sheet to hang with wooden pins

On the clothesline's shiny wire strung between T-shaped poles on each end.

She leaves her window perch to warm her feet over the open vent of her bedroom floor,

And stays there until she hears the thunderous slam of the heavy front door.

In conversation, her parents' voices climb through the open vent beneath her feet

Until she looks down and sees her dad as he calls up, telling her it was time to eat.

She calls back with glee as she runs into the hall and down the winding staircase,

And on the landing, she giggles when she sees her daddy's outstretched arms and smiling face.

Lifting her up in his arms, he carries her to the kitchen where the wood stove's heat

Creates a cozy and warm room, making it a most pleasant place to sit down and eat.

After a breakfast of sausage, scrambled eggs and biscuits of the homemade kind,

She watches her mother wash the dishes and cast iron skillet with a curious mind.

All the while talking, she watches the bubbles fill the large white sink,

But she doesn't step down from the stool until she receives a little water to drink.

Upstairs in the hallway, her mother sews away on the Singer treadle machine

As she makes a dress for her from a pink floral flour sack with buttons of green.

The frost was long gone from the window from where she had peered upon the snow outside,

So she holds her doll, Bobby, and while swaying back and forth, she pretends he cried.

She feels sleepy herself, and with her doll crawls under the quilt's warmth that was handmade

As she calls out to ask her mother if she could come pull down the rolled up window shade.

With drowsy eyes, she watches as her mother's action covers the large bedroom window,

The one where she had looked out onto the farm, her personal view of life covered in snow.