The gift of the magi. And I will love thee3 still, my dear, till all the seas gang4 dry:

Notes:

1. 2. 3. 4.

And I will love thee³ still, my dear, Till all the seas gang⁴ dry:

Till all the seas gang dry, my dear, And the rocks melt with the sun; I will love thee still, my dear, While the sands of life shall run.

And fare thee well, my only Love! And fare thee well a while! And I will come again, my Love, Though it were ten thousand mile.

THE LAST LEAF

(abridged)

by О'Henry

At the top of a three-story brick house in Greenwich Village¹ Sue and Johnsy had their studio. " Johnsy" was familiar for Joanna. One was from Maine²; the other from California. They had met at the table d'hote⁵ of an Eighth Street " Delmomco's", and found their tastes in art, chicory salad and bishop sleeves so congenial that the joint studio resulted.

That was in May. In November a cold, unseen stranger, whom the doctors called Pneumonia⁴, stalked about the colony, touching one here and there with his icy fingers.

Mr. Pneumonia was not what you would call a chivalric⁵ old gentleman. A mite of a little woman with blood thinned by California zephyrs⁶ was hardly fair game for the red-fisted, short-breathed old duffer'. But Johnsy he smote: and she lay, scarcely moving, on her painted iron bedstead, looking through the small Dutch windowpanes at the blank side of the next brick house.

One morning the busy doctor invited Sue into the hallway with a shaggy, gray eyebrow.

" She has one chance in — let us say, ten, " he said, as he shook down the mercury in his clinical thermometer. " And that chance is for her to want to live. Your little lady has made up her mind that she's not going to get well. Has she anything 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 about twice — a man, for instance? "

" A man? " said Sue. " Is a man worth — but, no, doctor; there is nothing of the kind."

" Well, it is the weakness, then, " said the doctor. " I will do all that science, so far as it may filter through my efforts, can accomplish. But whenever my patient begins to count the carriages in her funeral procession I subtract 50 per cent from the curative power of medicines. If you will get her to ask one question about the new winter styles in cloak sleeves I will promise you a one-in-Five chance for her, instead of one in ten."

After the doctor had gone Sue went into the workroom and cried a Japanese napkin to a pulp. Then she swaggered into Johnsy's room with her drawing board, whistling ragtime.

211 THE LAST LEAF

Johnsy lay, scarcely making a ripple under the bedclothes, with her face toward the window. She stopped whistling, thinking she was asleep.

She arranged her board and began a pen-and-ink drawing to illustrate a magazine story. Young artists must pave their way to Art by drawing pictures for magazine stories that young authors write to pave their way to Literature.

As Sue was sketching a pair of elegant horseshow riding trousers and a monocle on the figure of the hero, an Idaho cowboy, she heard a low sound, several times repeated. She went quickly to the bedside.

Johnsy's eyes were open wide. She was looking out the window and counting — 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 of the window. What was there to count?

There was only a bare, dreary yard to be seen, and the blank side of the brick house twenty feet away. An old, old ivy vine, climbed halfway up the brick wall. The cold breath of autumn had stricken its leaves from the vine until its skeleton branches clung, almost bare, to the crumbling bricks.

" What is it, dear? " asked Sue. " Six, " said Johnsy, in almost a whisper. " They're falling faster now. Three days ago there were almost a hundred. It made my head ache to count them. But now it's easy. There goes another one. There are only five left now.

" Five what, dear. Tell your Sudie." " Leaves. On the ivy vine. When the last one falls I must go⁸, too. I've known that for three days. Didn't the doctor tell you? "

" Oh, I never heard of such nonsense, " complained Sue, with magnifi­cent scorn. " What have old ivy leaves to do with your getting well? And you used to love that vine, so, you naughty girl. Don't be a goosey⁵. Why, the doctor told me this morning that your chances for getting well real soon were — let's see exactly what he said — he said the chances were ten to one! Why, that's almost as good a chance as we have in New York when we ride on the street-cars or walk past a new building. Try to take some broth now, and let Sudie go back to her drawing¹⁰, so she can sell the editor man with it, and buy port wine for her sick child, and pork chops for her greedy self i."

" You needn't get any more wine, " said Johnsy, keeping her eyes fixed out 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 it gets dark. Then I'll go, too."

212 THE LAST LEAF

" Johnsy, dear, " said Sue, bending over her, " will you promise me to keep your eyes closed, and not look out the window until I am done work­ing? I must hand those drawings in by to-morrow. I need the light, 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 to keep looking at those silly ivy leaves."

" Tell me as soon as you have finished, " said Johnsy, closing her eyes, and lying white and still as a fallen statue, " because I want to see the last one fall. I'm tired of waiting. I'm tired of thinking. I want to turn loose my hold on everything, and go sailing down, down, just like one of those poor, tired leaves."

" Try to sleep, " said Sue. " I must call Behrman up to be my model for the old hermit miner. I'll not be gone a minute. Don't try to move 'til 1 come back."

Old Behrman was a painter who lived on the ground floor beneath them. He was past sixty and he had been always about to paint a master­piece, but had never yet begun it. He earned a little by serving as a model to those young artists in the colony who could not pay the price of a profes­sional. He drank gin to excess, and still talked of his coming masterpiece. For the rest he was a fierce little old man, who regarded himself as the protector of the two young artists in the studio above.

Sue found Behrman smelling strongly¹² of jumper berries in his dimly lighted den below. In one corner was a blank canvas on an easel that had been waiting there for twenty-five years to receive the first line of the mas­terpiece. She told him of Johnsy's fancy, and how she feared she would, indeed, light and fragile as a leaf herself, float away, when her slight hold upon the world grew weaker.

Old Behrman, with his red eyes plainly streaming, shouted his contempt and derision for such idiotic imaginings.

" Vass! ^B" he cried. " Is dere people in de world mit der foolishness to die because leafs dey drop off from a confounded vine? I haf not heard of such a thing. No, I will not bose as a model for your fool hermit-dunderhead. Vy do you allow dot silly pusiness to come in der prain of her? Ach, dot poor leetle Miss Yohnsy."

" She is very ill and weak, " said Sue, " and the fever has left her mind morbid and full of strange fancies. Very well, Mr. Behrman, if you do not. care to pose for me, you needn't. But I think you are a horrid old — old flibbertigibbet."