The Last Leaf

Sue and Johnsy were two young painters who shared a small room at the top of an old house.In November Johnsy caught pneumonia, and soon she lay very still in bed, looking out the window all day.The doctor told Sue quietly that Johnsy might not get better, because she had decided she was going to die.

Outside the window, an old ivy plant climbed the brick wall of the next house, and the cold wind was tearing off its leaves.Sue heard Johnsy counting softly: “Ten... nine... eight... seven.”“When the last leaf falls, I will go too,” Johnsy said. “I have known it for three days.”

Downstairs lived Behrman, a poor old painter who had wanted all his life to paint one great picture but had never begun it.He earned a little money as a model, and he watched over the two young women like a fierce old dog.When Sue told him about the leaves, he shouted that it was foolish nonsense — but then he grew quiet and stared out at the ivy.

That night a hard storm beat against the house, with rain, snow, and a howling wind.In the morning Johnsy asked Sue to raise the shade, sure that the vine would be bare.But one last leaf still hung on the wall, dark green, with only its edges turned yellow.

All that day and through another wild night the leaf held on.When Johnsy saw it still there the next morning, something in her changed.“I have been wicked,” she said. “That leaf stayed to show me. Bring me some soup, Sue — and one day I want to paint the Bay of Naples.”

A few days later, when Johnsy was safe, Sue told her that old Behrman had died of pneumonia, caught out in the freezing storm.He had climbed a ladder that night with a lantern and paints, and had drawn the last leaf on the wall himself — the masterpiece he had waited a whole life to make.