The Last Leaf

The Last Leaf
By – O. Henry

In a little district west of Washington Square the streets have runcrazy and broken themselves into small strips called "places." These"places" make strange angles and curves. One street crosses itselfa time or two. An artist once discovered a valuable possibility inthis street. Suppose a collector with a bill for paints, paper andcanvas should, in traversing this route, suddenly meet himselfcoming back, without a cent having been paid on account!So, to quaint old Greenwich Village the art people soon cameprowling, hunting for north windows and eighteenth-century gablesand Dutch attics and low rents. Then they imported some pewter mugsand a chafing dish or two from Sixth avenue, and became a "colony."At the top of a squatty, three-story brick Sue and Johnsy had theirstudio. "Johnsy" was familiar for Joanna. One was from Maine; theother from California. They had met at the _table d'hote_ of anEighth street "Delmonico's," and found their tastes in art, chicorysalad and bishop sleeves so congenial that the joint studioresulted.That was in May. In November a cold, unseen stranger, whom thedoctors called Pneumonia, stalked about the colony, touching onehere and there with his icy fingers. Over on the east side thisravager strode boldly, smiting his victims by scores, but his feettrod slowly through the maze of the narrow and moss-grown "places."Mr. Pneumonia was not what you would call a chivalric old gentleman.A mite of a little woman with blood thinned by California zephyrswas hardly fair game for the red-fisted, short-breathed old duffer.But Johnsy he smote; and she lay, scarcely moving, on her paintediron bedstead, looking through the small Dutch window-panes at theblank side of the next brick house.One morning the busy doctor invited Sue into the hallway with ashaggy, gray eyebrow."She has one chance in--let us say, ten," he said, as he shook downthe mercury in his clinical thermometer. "And that chance is for herto want to live. This way people have of lining-up on the side ofthe undertaker makes the entire pharmacopeia look silly. Your littlelady has made up her mind that she's not going to get well. Has sheanything on her mind?""She--she wanted to paint the Bay of Naples some day," said Sue."Paint?--bosh! Has she anything on her mind worth thinking abouttwice--a man, for instance?""A man?" said Sue, with a jew's-harp twang in her voice. "Is a manworth--but, no, doctor; there is nothing of the kind.""Well, it is the weakness, then," said the doctor. "I will do allthat science, so far as it may filter through my efforts, canaccomplish. But whenever my patient begins to count the carriagesin her funeral procession I subtract 50 per cent. from the curativepower of medicines. If you will get her to ask one question aboutthe new winter styles in cloak sleeves I will promise you aone-in-five chance for her, instead of one in ten."After the doctor had gone Sue went into the workroom and cried aJapanese napkin to a pulp. Then she swaggered into Johnsy's roomwith her drawing board, whistling ragtime.Johnsy lay, scarcely making a ripple under the bedclothes, with herface toward the window. Sue stopped whistling, thinking she wasasleep.She arranged her board and began a pen-and-ink drawing to illustratea magazine story. Young artists must pave their way to Art bydrawing pictures for magazine stories that young authors write topave their way to Literature.As Sue was sketching a pair of elegant horseshow riding trousers anda monocle on the figure of the hero, an Idaho cowboy, she heard alow sound, several times repeated. She went quickly to the bedside.Johnsy's eyes were open wide. She was looking out the window andcounting--counting backward."Twelve," she said, and a little later "eleven;" and then "ten," and"nine;" and then "eight" and "seven," almost together.Sue looked solicitously out the window. What was there to count?There was only a bare, dreary yard to be seen, and the blank side ofthe brick house twenty feet away. An old, old ivy vine, gnarled anddecayed at the roots, climbed half way up the brick wall. The coldbreath of autumn had stricken its leaves from the vine until itsskeleton branches clung, almost bare, to the crumbling bricks."What is it, dear?" asked Sue."Six," said Johnsy, in almost a whisper. "They're falling fasternow. Three days ago there were almost a hundred. It made my headache to count them. But now it's easy. There goes another one. Thereare only five left now.""Five what, dear. Tell your Sudie.""Leaves. On the ivy vine. When the last one falls I must go, too.I've known that for three days. Didn't the doctor tell you?""Oh, I never heard of such nonsense," complained Sue, withmagnificent scorn. "What have old ivy leaves to do with your gettingwell? And you used to love that vine so, you naughty girl. Don't bea goosey. Why, the doctor told me this morning that your chances forgetting well real soon were--let's see exactly what he said--he saidthe chances were ten to one! Why, that's almost as good a chance aswe have in New York when we ride on the street cars or walk past anew building. Try to take some broth now, and let Sudie go back toher drawing, so she can sell the editor man with it, and buy portwine for her sick child, and pork chops for her greedy self.""You needn't get any more wine," said Johnsy, keeping her eyes fixedout the window. "There goes another. No, I don't want any broth.That leaves just four. I want to see the last one fall before itgets dark. Then I'll go, too.""Johnsy, dear," said Sue, bending over her, "will you promise me tokeep your eyes closed, and not look out the window until I am doneworking? I must hand those drawings in by to-morrow. I need thelight, or I would draw the shade down.""Couldn't you draw in the other room?" asked Johnsy, coldly."I'd rather be here by you," said Sue. "Besides I don't want you tokeep looking at those silly ivy leaves.""Tell me as soon as you have finished," said Johnsy, closing hereyes, and lying white and still as a fallen statue, "because Iwant to see the last one fall. I'm tired of waiting. I'm tired ofthinking. I went to turn loose my hold on everything, and go sailingdown, down, just like one of those poor, tired leaves.""Try to sleep," said Sue. "I must call Behrman up to be my model forthe old hermit miner. I'll not be gone a minute. Don't try to move'till I come back."Old Behrman was a painter who lived on the ground floor beneaththem. He was past sixty and had a Michael Angelo's Moses beardcurling down from the head of a satyr along the body of an imp.Behrman was a failure in art. Forty years he had wielded the brushwithout getting near enough to touch the hem of his Mistress's robe.He had been always about to paint a masterpiece, but had never yetbegun it. For several years he had painted nothing except now andthen a daub in the line of commerce or advertising. He earned alittle by serving as a model to those young artists in the colonywho could not pay the price of a professional. He drank gin toexcess, and still talked of his coming masterpiece. For the rest hewas a fierce little old man, who scoffed terribly at softness inany one, and who regarded himself as especial mastiff-in-waiting toprotect the two young artists in the studio above.Sue found Behrman smelling strongly of juniper berries in his dimlylighted den below. In one corner was a blank canvas on an easel thathad been waiting there for twenty-five years to receive the firstline of the masterpiece. She told him of Johnsy's fancy, and how shefeared she would, indeed, light and fragile as a leaf herself, floataway when her slight hold upon the world grew weaker.Old Behrman, with his red eyes, plainly streaming, shouted hiscontempt and derision for such idiotic imaginings."Vass!" he cried. "Is dere people in de world mit der foolishnessto die because leafs dey drop off from a confounded vine? I haf notheard of such a thing. No, I will not bose as a model for your foolhermit-dunderhead. Vy do you allow dot silly pusiness to come in derprain of her? Ach, dot poor lettle Miss Johnsy.""She is very ill and weak," said Sue, "and the fever has left hermind morbid and full of strange fancies. Very well, Mr. Behrman, ifyou do not care to pose for me, you needn't. But I think you are ahorrid old--old flibbertigibbet.""You are just like a woman!" yelled Behrman. "Who said I will notbose? Go on. I come mit you. For half an hour I haf peen trying tosay dot I am ready to bose. Gott! dis is not any blace in whichone so goot as Miss Yohnsy shall lie sick. Some day I vill baint amasterpiece, and ve shall all go away. Gott! yes."Johnsy was sleeping when they went upstairs. Sue pulled the shadedown to the window-sill, and motioned Behrman into the other room.In there they peered out the window fearfully at the ivy vine.Then they looked at each other for a moment without speaking. Apersistent, cold rain was falling, mingled with snow. Behrman, inhis old blue shirt, took his seat as the hermit-miner on an upturnedkettle for a rock.When Sue awoke from an hour's sleep the next morning she foundJohnsy with dull, wide-open eyes staring at the drawn green shade."Pull it up; I want to see," she ordered, in a whisper.Wearily Sue obeyed.But, lo! after the beating rain and fierce gusts of wind that hadendured through the livelong night, there yet stood out against thebrick wall one ivy leaf. It was the last on the vine. Still darkgreen near its stem, but with its serrated edges tinted with theyellow of dissolution and decay, it hung bravely from a branch sometwenty feet above the ground."It is the last one," said Johnsy. "I thought it would surely fallduring the night. I heard the wind. It will fall to-day, and I shalldie at the same time.""Dear, dear!" said Sue, leaning her worn face down to the pillow,"think of me, if you won't think of yourself. What would I do?"But Johnsy did not answer. The lonesomest thing in all the world isa soul when it is making ready to go on its mysterious, far journey.The fancy seemed to possess her more strongly as one by one the tiesthat bound her to friendship and to earth were loosed.The day wore away, and even through the twilight they could see thelone ivy leaf clinging to its stem against the wall. And then, withthe coming of the night the north wind was again loosed, while therain still beat against the windows and pattered down from the lowDutch eaves.When it was light enough Johnsy, the merciless, commanded that theshade be raised.The ivy leaf was still there.Johnsy lay for a long time looking at it. And then she called toSue, who was stirring her chicken broth over the gas stove."I've been a bad girl, Sudie," said Johnsy. "Something has made thatlast leaf stay there to show me how wicked I was. It is a sin towant to die. You may bring me a little broth now, and some milk witha little port in it, and--no; bring me a hand-mirror first, and thenpack some pillows about me, and I will sit up and watch you cook."An hour later she said."Sudie, some day I hope to paint the Bay of Naples."The doctor came in the afternoon, and Sue had an excuse to go intothe hallway as he left."Even chances," said the doctor, taking Sue's thin, shaking hand inhis. "With good nursing you'll win. And now I must see another caseI have downstairs. Behrman, his name is--some kind of an artist, Ibelieve. Pneumonia, too. He is an old, weak man, and the attack isacute. There is no hope for him; but he goes to the hospital to-dayto be made more comfortable."The next day the doctor said to Sue: "She's out of danger. You'vewon. Nutrition and care now--that's all."And that afternoon Sue came to the bed where Johnsy lay, contentedlyknitting a very blue and very useless woolen shoulder scarf, and putone arm around her, pillows and all."I have something to tell you, white mouse," she said. "Mr. Behrmandied of pneumonia to-day in the hospital. He was ill only two days.The janitor found him on the morning of the first day in his roomdownstairs helpless with pain. His shoes and clothing were wetthrough and icy cold. They couldn't imagine where he had beenon such a dreadful night. And then they found a lantern, stilllighted, and a ladder that had been dragged from its place, and somescattered brushes, and a palette with green and yellow colors mixedon it, and--look out the window, dear, at the last ivy leaf on thewall. Didn't you wonder why it never fluttered or moved when thewind blew? Ah, darling, it's Behrman's masterpiece--he painted itthere the night that the last leaf fell."


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