1 At the top of a three-story brick building, Sue and Johnsy had their studio. "Johnsy" was familiar for Joanna. One was from Maine; the other from California. They had met at a cafe on Eighth Street and found their tastes in art, chicorysalad and bishopsleeves so much in tune that the jointstudio resulted.
2 That was in May. In November a cold, unseen stranger, whom the doctors called Pneumonia, stalked about the district, touching one here and there with his icy fingers. Johnsy was among his victims. She lay, scarcely moving on her bed, looking through the small window at the blank side of the next brick house.
3 One morning the busy doctor invited Sue into the hallway with a bushy, gray eyebrow.
4 "She has one chance in ten," he said. "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?
5 "She -- she wanted to paint the Bay of Naples some day," said Sue.
6 "Paint? -- bosh! Has she anything on her mind worth thinking about twice -- a man, for instance?"
7 "A man?" said Sue. "Is a man worth -- but, no, doctor; there is nothing of the kind."
8 "Well," said the doctor. "I will do all that science 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." After the doctor had gone Sue went into the workroom and cried. Then she marched into Johnsy's room with her drawing board, whistling a merry tune.
9 Johnsy lay, scarcely making a movement under the bedclothes, with her face toward the window. She was looking out and counting -- counting backward.
10 "Twelve," she said, and a little later "eleven"; and then "ten," and "nine"; and then "eight" and "seven," almost together.
11 Sue looked 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 ivyvine climbed half way up the brick wall. The cold breath of autumn had blown away its leaves, leaving it almost bare.
12 "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."
13 "Five what, dear? "
14 "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?"
15 "Oh, I never heard of such nonsense. What have old ivy leaves to do with your getting well? Don't be so silly. Why, the doctor told me this morning that your chances for getting well real soon were ten to one! Try to take some soup now, and let Sudie go and buy port wine for her sick child."
16 "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 soup. That leaves just four. I want to see the last one fall before it gets dark. Then I'll go, too. 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."
17 "Try to sleep," said Sue. "I must call Behrman up to be my model for the old miner. I'll not be gone a minute."
18 Old Behrman was a painter who lived on the ground floor beneath them. He was past sixty and had a long white beard curling down over his chest. Despite looking the part, Behrman was a failure in art. For forty years 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 who could not pay the price of a professional. He drank ginto excess, and still talked of his coming masterpiece. For the rest he was a fierce little old man, who mocked terribly at softness in any one, and who regarded himself as guard dog to the two young artists in the studio above.
19 Sue found Behrman smelling strongly of gin in his dimly lighted studio 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 for such foolish imaginings.
20 "What!" he cried. "Are there people in the world foolish enough to die because leafs drop off from a vine? I have never heard of such a thing. Why do you allow such silly ideas to come into that head of hers? God! This is not a place in which one so good as Miss Johnsy should lie sick. Some day I will paint amasterpiece, and we shall all go away. Yes."

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