“Can you believe my ferns could end a friendship?” I asked my wife who was washing dishes.

Meg’s gaze leaped from her soapy hands to the window above the kitchen sink.

“You mean those out by the back fence?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you try to give some away?”

“Nope.  I let you dig half a dozen up for a plant sale, but I’m keeping all the rest.”

She turned and scowled at me.  “Then what did you do?"

I gave her a sheepish grin.  “Nothing.  But sometime over the winter they crept under the fence and popped up in Harold’s tomato patch.  He’s madder’n a zillion hornets.”

Meg pushed her soapy hands against my chest.  Her eyes gleamed like fire opals.

“Go over there, Allen, dig them out, and make nice.”

That was easier said than done.  Harold Toomey, my cantankerous neighbor, was a 97-year-old WWII veteran.  His hearing was still sharp, his tongue sharper.  And not a brain cell had waned.

He was about my height, far leaner, and ramrod straight. Moreover, he spent hours on his knees with his vegetables, pruning, weeding, and nurturing.

There was no gate between our yards.  I had to walk around the block and unlatch the gate in the stockade fence that enclosed his yard.  His lawn was freshly mowed.  He did that, too.  I wasn’t surprised to see him near his tomatoes.

It was a warm day in May, but I didn’t find him on his knees.  He stood facing me, hands on his hips.  He wore Oshkosh overalls over a yellow long-sleeved t-shirt, and dirty tennis shoes.  Thick white hair was swept back from his forehead and hid his ears.  A bushy beard, a shade darker, covered much of his face except for a bulbous nose and pale blue eyes.  Unlike me, he didn’t wear glasses.

“I heard you open the gate.  Whatcha want, Berke?”

Though we’d been neighbors for decades, he never called me Allen.

“If you have a spade handy, I’ll dig out those intruding ferns, Harold.”

He glared at me.  “No need to do that.  I’ve got a jug of vinegar and water in the garage I’ll use.  What’s green today will be brown and gone tomorrow.”

“No!” I croaked.  “Don’t kill them.  I’ll dig them out and take them home.”

A toothy sneer appeared amidst his beard.  “God, you’re soft-hearted, Berke.  You have a forest over there.  I can see tips of them things from my deck.”

Now I was glaring.  “They’re ferns, Toomey.  Ostrich ferns.  Beautiful and fragile and well worth preserving.”

I glanced at his eight ferns curling up beside already blossoming tomato plants.

“It won’t take me half an hour to remove them.  You can watch me from your deck.  I promise not to touch your precious tomatoes.”

His sneer vanished and the look in his eyes softened.  “You like them that much, eh?”

I nodded.

“Well . . . uh . . . dig ‘em up, but replant them over in the northeast corner where the fence comes together.  There’s only hosta there now.”

I smiled.  “Hostas and ferns.  Give them a month together, Harold.  You’ll love the combo.”

“I’ll grab some tools from the garage, and we’ll cut the time in half.  Then you can go home to your pretty wife, Berke.”

I laughed.  “Pretty, eh?  You been ogling my wife from your deck?”

“Well, I’m old, Berke.  But not dead.”

A month later he was thanking me profusely for those ferns.