So, to old fashioned vintage Greenwich Village the art humans soon got here prowling, trying to find north windows and eighteenth-century gables and Dutch attics and low rents. Then they imported a few pewter mugs and a chafing dish orfrom sixth street, and became a “colony.”
at the top of a squatty, three-tale brick Sue and Johnsy had their studio. “Johnsy” turned into familiar for Joanna. One turned into from Maine; the opposite from California. they'd met on the desk d’hote of an 8th avenue “Delmonico’s,” and located their tastes in art, chicory salad and bishop sleeves so congenial that the joint studio resulted.
That was in may. In November a chilly, unseen stranger, whom the doctors known as Pneumonia, stalked about the colony, touching one here and there together with his icy fingers. Over on the east aspect this ravager strode boldly, smiting his victims by means of ratings, however his feet trod slowly thru the maze of the narrow and moss-grown “locations.”
Mr. Pneumonia become not what you will name a chivalric vintage gentleman. A mite of a touch woman with blood thinned by using California zephyrs turned into hardly ever fair game for the crimson-fisted, quick-breathed antiqueduffer. however Johnsy he smote; and he or she lay, scarcely moving, on her painted iron bedstead, searching through the small Dutch window-panes at the clean side of the next brick residence.
One morning the busy health practitioner invited Sue into the hallway with a shaggy, gray eyebrow.
“She has one threat in—allow us to say, ten,” he stated, as he shook down the mercury in his clinical thermometer. “And that risk is for her to need to stay. This way humans have of lining-up on the side of the undertaker makes the wholepharmacopeia look stupid. Your little lady has made up her mind that she’s no longer going to get properly. Has she some thing on her mind?”
“She—she wanted to color the Bay of Naples some day,” stated Sue.
“Paint?—bosh! Has she whatever on her mind really worth thinking about twice—a person, as an example?”
“a man?” said Sue, with a jew’s-harp twang in her voice. “Is a man well worth—however, no, physician; there's not anything of the sort.”
“properly, it's miles the weak spot, then,” said the doctor. “i'm able to do all that science, to this point as it could filter out thru my efforts, can accomplish. however every time my affected person starts to rely the carriages in her funeral procession I subtract 50 in keeping with cent. from the healing energy of drug treatments. If you'll get her to ask one query about the new iciness styles in cloak sleeves i'm able to promise you a one-in-five danger for her, instead of one in ten.”
After the physician had long past Sue went into the workroom and cried a eastern serviette to a pulp. Then she swaggered into Johnsy’s room along with her drawing board, whistling ragtime.
Johnsy lay, scarcely creating a ripple underneath the bedclothes, together with her face towards the window. Sue stopped whistling, questioning she became asleep.
She arranged her board and started a pen-and-ink drawing to demonstrate a mag story. younger artists need to pave their manner to artwork by drawing images for mag stories that young authors write to pave their way to Literature.
As Sue turned into sketching a pair of fashionable horseshow riding trousers and a monocle on the determine of the hero, an Idaho cowboy, she heard a low sound, numerous times repeated. She went quickly to the bedside.
Johnsy’s eyes have been open wide. She become searching out the window and counting—counting backward.
“Twelve,” she said, and a little later “11;” and then “ten,” and “nine;” after which “8” and “seven,” nearly together.
Sue appeared solicitously out the window. What was there to depend? there was only a naked, dreary yard to be visible, and the clean aspect of the brick residence twenty ft away. An old, vintage ivy vine, gnarled and decayed at the roots, climbed 1/2 manner up the brick wall. The bloodless breath of autumn had troubled its leaves from the vine till its skeleton branches clung, nearly bare, to the crumbling bricks.
“what's it, pricey?” requested Sue.
“Six,” said Johnsy, in nearly a whisper. “They’re falling quicker now. three days in the past there have been nearly one hundred. It made my head ache to remember them. but now it’s clean. There goes another one. There are most effectivefive left now.”
“5 what, expensive. tell your Sudie.”
“Leaves. on the ivy vine. whilst the last one falls I should cross, too. I’ve recognized that for three days. Didn’t the health practitioner tell you?”
“Oh, I never heard of such nonsense,” complained Sue, with spectacular scorn. “What have antique ivy leaves to do with your getting nicely? and also you used to love that vine so, you naughty lady. Don’t be a goosey. Why, the doctorinstructed me this morning that your chances for purchasing nicely real soon were—permit’s see exactly what he said—he stated the possibilities had been ten to at least one! Why, that’s nearly as suitable a threat as we have in new yorkwhilst we journey on the road cars or walk beyond a brand new building. attempt to take some broth now, and permitSudie move again to her drawing, so she will be able to promote the editor man with it, and purchase port wine for her sick baby, and red meat chops for her greedy self.”
“You needn’t get any extra wine,” said Johnsy, preserving her eyes constant out the window. “There is going every other. No, I don’t want any broth. That leaves just four. I want to see the closing one fall before it receives dark. Then I’ll pass, too.”
“Johnsy, dear,” stated Sue, bending over her, “will you promise me to maintain your eyes closed, and now not look out the window till i am finished operating? I need to hand those drawings in with the aid of to-morrow. I want the light, or i would draw the shade down.”
“Couldn’t you draw in the other room?” asked Johnsy, coldly.
“I’d as an alternative be here with the aid of you,” stated Sue. “besides I don’t need you to keep looking at the ones sillyivy leaves.”
“tell me as quickly as you've got completed,” said Johnsy, closing her eyes, and mendacity white and still as a fallen statue, “due to the fact I need to see the remaining one fall. I’m uninterested in waiting. I’m uninterested in thinking. I want to turn free my hold on the whole thing, and go sailing down, down, just like one of these poor, tired leaves.”
“try to sleep,” stated Sue. “I ought to call Behrman up to be my model for the vintage hermit miner. I’ll not be gone a minute. Don’t attempt to circulate ’until I come again.”
vintage Behrman turned into a painter who lived at the ground ground below them. He changed into past sixty and had a Michael Angelo’s Moses beard curling down from the top of a satyr along the body of an imp. Behrman became a failure in artwork. 40 years he had wielded the comb with out getting close to sufficient to the touch the hem of his Mistress’s gown. He had been always about to paint a masterpiece, but had never yet started it. For numerous years he had painted not anything except now and then a daub within the line of commerce or advertising. He earned a touch through serving as a model to those young artists within the colony who could not pay the charge of a expert. He drank gin to extra, and nevertheless talked of his coming masterpiece. For the relaxation he was a fierce little old man, who scoffed terribly at softness in any individual, and who regarded himself as especial mastiff-in-waiting to shield the two young artists in thestudio above.
Sue observed Behrman smelling strongly of juniper berries in his dimly lighted den underneath. in one nook changed intoa clean canvas on an easel that were ready there for twenty-5 years to get hold of the primary line of the masterpiece. She informed him of Johnsy’s fancy, and the way she feared she could, indeed, mild and fragile as a leaf herself, go with the flow away whilst her mild keep upon the arena grew weaker.
antique Behrman, together with his purple eyes, plainly streaming, shouted his contempt and derision for such idiotic imaginings.
“Vass!” he cried. “Is dere people in de global mit der foolishness to die because leafs dey drop off from a confounded vine? I haf not heard of any such component. No, i will no longer bose as a model to your fool hermit-dunderhead. Vy do you allow dot silly pusiness to are available der prain of her? Ach, dot negative lettle omit Johnsy.”
“She could be very sick and weak,” said Sue, “and the fever has left her thoughts morbid and complete of strange fancies. thoroughly, Mr. Behrman, if you do not care to pose for me, you needn’t. but I assume you're a horrid old—oldflibbertigibbet.”
“you're similar to a female!” yelled Behrman. “Who stated i'm able to no longer bose? go on. I come mit you. For half an hour I haf peen trying to mention dot i am prepared to bose. Gott! dis isn't any blace wherein one so goot as miss Yohnsy shall lie unwell. some day I vill baint a masterpiece, and ve shall all leave. Gott! sure.”
Johnsy become sound asleep when they went upstairs. Sue pulled the coloration all the way down to the window-sill, and motioned Behrman into the alternative room. In there they peered out the window fearfully at the ivy vine. Then they looked at every different for a moment with out talking. A chronic, cold rain was falling, mingled with snow. Behrman, in his old blue shirt, took his seat because the hermit-miner on an upturned kettle for a rock.
when Sue awoke from an hour’s sleep the subsequent morning she observed Johnsy with dull, wide-open eyes staring atthe drawn green color.
“Pull it up; I want to peer,” she ordered, in a whisper.
Wearily Sue obeyed.
but, lo! after the beating rain and fierce gusts of wind that had persisted thru the livelong night, there yet stood out in opposition to the brick wall one ivy leaf. It became the closing on the vine. still darkish green near its stem, but with its serrated edges tinted with the yellow of dissolution and decay, it hung bravely from a department a few twenty toes above the ground.
“it's far the final one,” stated Johnsy. “I idea it'd honestly fall throughout the night time. I heard the wind. it'll fall to-day, and i shall die on the same time.”
“dear, expensive!” said Sue, leaning her worn face down to the pillow, “think of me, if you gained’t think of your self. What would I do?”
however Johnsy did now not answer. The lonesomest element in all the global is a soul while it is making geared up to head on its mysterious, a long way journey. the flamboyant seemed to own her greater strongly as separately the bindsthat certain her to friendship and to earth had been loosed.
The day wore away, and even thru the twilight they could see the lone ivy leaf clinging to its stem in opposition to the wall. and then, with the coming of the night time the north wind turned into once more loosed, even as the rain nonethelessbeat in opposition to the windows and pattered down from the low Dutch eaves.
whilst it become mild sufficient Johnsy, the cruel, commanded that the colour be raised.
The ivy leaf turned into nonetheless there.
Johnsy lay for a long term searching at it. after which she referred to as to Sue, who was stirring her fowl broth over the gas range.
“I’ve been a bad female, Sudie,” stated Johnsy. “some thing has made that remaining leaf stay there to reveal me how depraved i used to be. it is a sin to need to die. you can bring me a bit broth now, and some milk with a bit port in it, and—no; convey me a hand-mirror first, after which p.c. a few pillows approximately me, and i will sit up straight and watch you cook.”
An hour later she said.
“Sudie, some day i'm hoping to paint the Bay of Naples.”
The physician came inside the afternoon, and Sue had an excuse to go into the hallway as he left.
“Even possibilities,” said the physician, taking Sue’s thin, shaking hand in his. “With good nursing you’ll win. And now I must see every other case i have downstairs. Behrman, his name is—a few form of an artist, I consider. Pneumonia, too. he is an antique, weak guy, and the assault is acute. there's no hope for him; but he goes to the clinic to-day to be made more relaxed.”
day after today the doctor said to Sue: “She’s out of threat. You’ve gained. nutrients and care now—that’s all.”
And that afternoon Sue got here to the mattress wherein Johnsy lay, contentedly knitting a totally blue and really uselesswoolen shoulder scarf, and positioned one arm around her, pillows and all.
“i have something to tell you, white mouse,” she said. “Mr. Behrman died of pneumonia to-day inside the clinic. He turned into sick best two days. The janitor discovered him on the morning of the primary day in his room downstairs helpless with pain. His shoes and apparel had been wet through and icy cold. They couldn’t believe wherein he were on this kind of dreadful night time. and then they located a lantern, still lighted, and a ladder that were dragged from its place, and some scattered brushes, and a palette with inexperienced and yellow colorings combined on it, and—look out the window, expensive, on the remaining ivy leaf on the wall. Didn’t you marvel why it by no means fluttered or moved whenthe wind blew? Ah, darling, it’s Behrman’s masterpiece—he painted it there the night that the remaining leaf fell.”
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