Much virtue in if lettering on upper arm

The wardens came up the lane again on Tuesday with their ledgers and their polite faces, and I told them what I've told you: the cottage stays where it is, and so does the wood. Mrs Peverell's boy has been clearing the ash saplings past the stile, which I would not have allowed, but he says the ground there is soft and the roots want air. I didn't argue. There is little point arguing with a boy who has a wheelbarrow and no sense of fear.

You will laugh, but I have started keeping a list on the back of the almanac, every line that begins with if. If the frost holds, the pear will blossom late. If the beck rises, we cross by the fallen elm. If you come home at Michaelmas, I will make the blackberry pudding you pretend to hate. Some of them come true and some do not, and the ones that do not are the ones I lie awake over, listening to the owls in the box bed.

Father used to say that if was the most dangerous word in English, because it asks nothing of anyone and promises everything. I thought him dour. Then last week a stranger came to the forge asking the way to the old quarry, and he stood at the gate turning his hat in his hands and said that if he had known the path was so long he would have brought a horse. I told him there is much virtue in if, provided a man uses it to walk further rather than to sit down. He looked at me as though I had given him a shilling, and went off into the trees with his hat on straight.

Come home, Tom, and bring the good boots. The fire is laid, and I have a list of ifs for you to read by it.