The last leaf - O. Henry/1

  There is a little area west of Washington Square called Greenwich Village. The streets there are crazy, and break themselves into small parts called "places." These "places" make strange angles and curves. one street even crosses itselt twice. Artists soon came to Greenwich Village, looking for big windows, high ceilings and low rents. They called themselves a "colony."

  At the top of a three story brick building Sue and Joanna had their studio. Sue was from Maine, Joanna from California. They had met at an Italian restaurant, and found that their tastes in art, potato salad and frared pants were so similar that they moved in together.

  That was in May. In November a cold, unseen stranger, whom the doctors called Pneumonia, visited the colony. He touched one here and there with his icy fingers. Over on the east side this killer travelled easily, finding many victims, but he moved more slowly through the maze of narrow " places."

  Mr. Pneumonia was not a nice old gentleman. It wasn't fair that he would strike a skinny young wonan who was used to Californian sun and gentlel breezes. But he did. He struck Joanna, and she lay in bed hardly moving, looking out the window ant a brick wall.

  one morning the busy doctor had a secret talk with Sue in the hallway.

  "She has one chance in ten, " he said, "but she has to want to live. I think your friend has decided that she willnot get better.  Is there anuthing she lives for?"

  "She - she wanted to paint the Bay of Naples some day," said Sue.

  "Paint? NOnsense! Has she anything on her mind worth thinking about - a man, for exampl?"

  "A man?" said Sue, with an annoyed note in her voice. "Is a man worth... No, doctor, there is nothing like that."

  "Well, that is a problem, then." said the doctor.

  "I will do everything that I can do. But once a patient gives up, medicine loses half its power. You need to get her to ask one question about the new winter style in pants. Then I will promise you a one-in-five chance for her, instead of one-in-ten."

  After the doctor had gone Sue cried. Then she skipped into Joanna's room with her drawing board," whistling a happy tune.

  Joanna lay still under the blanket, with her face toward the window. Sue stopped whistling, thinking she was asleep.

  She set up her drawing board and began a pen-and-ink drawing to illustrate a maganine story. Young artists must climb the ladder to Art by drawing picutures for magazine stories that young authors write to climb the ladder to Literature.

  As Sue was sketching a silk suit on the figure of the hero, am Odaho cowboy, she heard a low sound, repeated several times. She went quickly to bedside.

  Joanna's eyes were wide open. She was looking out the window and counting - counting backward.

  "Twelve," she saod, and a little later "eleven," and then "ten," and  "nine," and then "eight," and "seven," almost together.

  Sue looked out the window. Whaat was there to count? There was only the blank wall of the brick house twenty meters away. An old, old ivy vine climbed half way up the brick wall. The cold breath of fall had taken most of the leaves away, and its skeleton branches hung, almost bare, to the bricks.

  "What is it, dear?" asked Sue.

  "Six, " whispered Joanna. "They're falling faster now. A few days ago there were almost a hundred. It was difficult to count them. But now it's easy. There goes another one. There are only five left now."

  "Five what, dear? Tell me."

  "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?"