The last leaf. You are just like a woman. Yelled Behrman

" You are just like a woman! " yelled Behrman. " Who said J will not bose? Go on. I come mit you. For half an hour I haf peen trying to say dot I am ready to bose. Gott! dis is not any blace

Some day

which one so goot as Miss masterpiece, and ve shall

go

Yohnsy shall lie s away. Gott! yes."

Johnsy was sleeping when they went upstairs. Sue pulled the shade down 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. A persistent, cold rain was falling, mingled with snow. Behrman, in his old blue shirt, took his seat as the hermit-miner on an upturned kettle for a rock.

When Sue awoke from an hour's sleep the next morning she found Johnsy 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 had endured through the livelong night, there yet stood out against the brick wall one ivy leaf. It was the last on the vine. It hung bravely from a branch some twenty feet above the ground.

" It is the last one, " said Johnsy. " I thought it would surely fall during the night. I heard the wind. It will fall to-day, and I shall die 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 day wore away, and even through the twilight they could see the lone ivy leaf clinging to its stem against the wall. And then, with the coming of the night the north wind was again loosed, while the rain still beat against the windows.

When it was light enough Johnsy, the merciless, commanded that the shade be raised. The ivy leaf was still there.

Johnsy lay for a long time looking at it. And then she called to Sue, who was stirring her chicken broth over the gas stove.

" I've been a bad girl, Sudie, " said Johnsy. " Something has made that last leaf stay there to show me how wicked I was. It is a sin to want to die. You may bring me a little broth now, and some milk with a little port in it, and — no; bring me a hand-mirror first, and then pack 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 into the hallway as he left.

214 THE LAST LEAF

" Even chances, " said the doctor, taking Sue's thin, shaking hand in his. " With good nursing you'll win. And now I must see another case I have downstairs. Behrman, his name is — some kind of an artist, I believe. Pneumonia, too. He is an old, weak man, and the attack is acute. There is no hope for him; but he goes to the hospital to-day to be made more com­fortable."

The next day the doctor said to Sue: " She's out of danger. You've won. Nutrition and care now-that's all."

And that afternoon Sue came to the bed where Johnsy lay, contentedly knitting a very blue and very useless woollen shoulder scarf, and put one arm around her, pillows and all.

" I have something to tell you, white mouse, " she said. " Mr. Behrman died 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 room downstairs helpless with pain. His shoes and clothing were wet through and icy cold. They couldn't imagine where he had been on such a dreadful night. And then they found a lantern, still lighted, and a ladder that had been dragged from its place, and some scattered brushes, and a palette with green and yellow colors mixed on it, and — look out the window, dear, at the last ivy leaf on the wall. Didn't you wonder why it never fluttered or moved hen the wind blew? Ah, darling, it's Behrman's masterpiece — he painted it there the night that the last leaf fell."

Notes:

1. Greenwich ['gnnids] Village — it is a part of New York in the Southwest of Manhattan Island. It is a very quiet part of the city in which artists and writers live. Long ago it was a separate village.

2. Maine is a state to the north of New York. It is moutainous and has many lakes and forests.

3. table d'hote [' ta: bl' dout] — дежурные блюда

4. pneumonia [njiu 'snounja]

5. chivalric ['frvlrik] courteous

6. zephyrs I'zefs] west wind

7. duffer [ 'dAfa] unintelligent person

8. I must go — Jonsy means that she must die.

9. goosey (slang) — a small silly child

10.... let Sudie go back to her drawing... — Sue is speaking about herself to Jonsy in the third person as if Jonsy were a small child.

11.... for her greedy self. — Here self has become a noun and means own personal interests, person's own body and personality.