Fern sprig along the collarbone

The frost came down on Tuesday and stayed, so the yard is all white ridges where the cattle churned it to slush and it set again. Dad's knee is worse. He says it's the damp, though I think it's the ladder to the loft, which he climbs every night to check the hay is dry. I've taken over the milking, and the Hallows boy helps on Saturdays for four pounds and a sandwich.

I went up the lane bank yesterday for kindling and found ferns still green under the hawthorn, the ones you used to call the sleeping ones because they curl so tight in the cold. I cut a sprig for you. It's pressed in the back of the almanac, between March and the tithe page. I know you won't want it. You never liked the dead things I brought you, the moles and the jackdaws. But it's the only green thing left on the place and I thought you should have a bit of it.

The letter from the solicitor came too. The buyers want the north field by spring, and Dad has said yes without telling me what he's agreed to. I haven't argued. I've been counting ewes instead, forty-one in the top pen, and the lambing shed still wants whitewash.

If you come at Candlemas, the bus stops at the crossroads at four. I'll leave the lamp in the window. Bring your good boots and come up the bank with me before the light goes. The fern will have opened by then if the thaw holds, and you can tell me it was never as bright as I remember.

Love, Hen