Now, the VOA Special English program AMERICAN STORIES.

Our story today is called "The Last Leaf." It was written by O. Henry. Here is Barbara Klein with the story.

Many artists lived in the Greenwich Village area of New York. Two
young women named Sue and Johnsy shared a studio apartment at the top of
a three-story building. Johnsy's real name was Joanna.
In
November, a cold, unseen stranger came to visit the city. This disease,
pneumonia, killed many people. Johnsy lay on her bed, hardly moving. She
looked through the small window. She could see the side of the brick
house next to her building.
One morning, a doctor examined Johnsy and took her temperature. Then he spoke with Sue in another room.
"She
has one chance in -- let us say ten," he said. "And that chance is for
her to want to live. Your friend has made up her mind that she is not
going to get well. Has she anything on her mind?"
"She -- she wanted to paint the Bay of Naples in Italy some day," said Sue.
"Paint?" said the doctor. "Bosh! Has she anything on her mind worth thinking twice -- a man for example?"
"A man?" said Sue. "Is a man worth -- but, no, doctor; there is nothing of the kind."
"I
will do all that science can do," said the doctor. "But whenever my
patient begins to count the carriages at her funeral, I take away fifty
percent from the curative power of medicines."
After the doctor
had gone, Sue went into the workroom and cried. Then she went to
Johnsy's room with her drawing board, whistling ragtime.
Johnsy
lay with her face toward the window. Sue stopped whistling, thinking she
was asleep. She began making a pen and ink drawing for a story in a
magazine. Young artists must work their way to "Art" by making pictures
for magazine stories. Sue heard a low sound, several times repeated. She
went quickly to the bedside.
Johnsy's eyes were open wide. She
was looking out the window and counting -- counting backward. "Twelve,"
she said, and a little later "eleven"; and then "ten" and "nine;" and
then "eight" and "seven," almost together.
Sue looked out the
window. What was there to count? There was only an empty yard and the
blank side of the house seven meters away. An old ivy vine, going bad at
the roots, climbed half way up the wall. The cold breath of autumn had
stricken leaves from the plant until its branches, almost bare, hung on
the bricks.
"What is it, dear?" asked Sue.
"Six," said
Johnsy, quietly. "They're falling faster now. Three days ago there were
almost a hundred. It made my head hurt to count them. But now it's easy.
There goes another one. There are only five left now."
"Five what, dear?" asked Sue.
"Leaves. On the plant. When the last one falls I must go, too. I've known that for three days. Didn't the doctor tell you?"
"Oh,
I never heard of such a thing," said Sue. "What have old ivy leaves to
do with your getting well? And you used to love that vine. Don't be
silly. Why, the doctor told me this morning that your chances for
getting well real soon were -- let's see exactly what he said – he said
the chances were ten to one! Try to eat some soup now. And, let me go
back to my drawing, so I can sell it to the magazine and buy food and
wine for us."
"You needn't get any more wine," said Johnsy,
keeping her eyes fixed out the window. "There goes another one. 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."
"Johnsy, dear," said
Sue, "will you promise me to keep your eyes closed, and not look out
the window until I am done working? I must hand those drawings in by
tomorrow."
"Tell me as soon as you have finished," said Johnsy,
closing her eyes and lying white and still as a fallen statue. "I want
to see the last one fall. 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."
"Try to sleep," said
Sue. "I must call Mister Behrman up to be my model for my drawing of an
old miner. Don't try to move until I come back."
Old Behrman was a
painter who lived on the ground floor of the apartment building.
Behrman was a failure in art. For years, he had always been planning to
paint a work of art, but had never yet begun it. He earned a little
money by serving as a model to artists who could not pay for a
professional model. He was a fierce, little, old man who protected the
two young women in the studio apartment above him.
Sue found
Behrman in his room. In one area was a blank canvas that had been
waiting twenty-five years for the first line of paint. Sue told him
about Johnsy and how she feared that her friend would float away like a
leaf.
Old Behrman was angered at such an idea. "Are there people
in the world with the foolishness to die because leaves drop off a vine?
Why do you let that silly business come in her brain?"
"She is very sick and weak," said Sue, "and the disease has left her mind full of strange ideas."
"This
is not any place in which one so good as Miss Johnsy shall lie sick,"
yelled Behrman. "Some day I will paint a masterpiece, and we shall all
go away."
Johnsy was sleeping when they went upstairs. Sue pulled
the shade down to cover the window. She and Behrman went into the other
room. They looked out a window fearfully at the ivy vine. Then they
looked at each other without speaking. A cold rain was falling, mixed
with snow. Behrman sat and posed as the miner.
The next morning, Sue awoke after an hour's sleep. She found Johnsy with wide-open eyes staring at the covered window.
"Pull up the shade; I want to see," she ordered, quietly.
Sue obeyed.
After
the beating rain and fierce wind that blew through the night, there yet
stood against the wall one ivy leaf. It was the last one on the vine.
It was still dark green at the center. But its edges were colored with
the yellow. It hung bravely from the branch about seven meters 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 today and I
shall die at the same time."
"Dear, dear!" said Sue, leaning her
worn face down toward the bed. "Think of me, if you won't think of
yourself. What would I do?"
But Johnsy did not answer.


The next morning, when it was light, Johnsy demanded that the window
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 preparing
chicken soup.
"I've been a bad girl," said Johnsy. "Something has
made that last leaf stay there to show me how bad I was. It is wrong to
want to die. You may bring me a little soup now."
An hour later she said: "Someday I hope to paint the Bay of Naples."
Later in the day, the doctor came, and Sue talked to him in the hallway.
"Even
chances," said the doctor. "With good care, you'll win. And now I must
see another case I have in your building. Behrman, his name is -- some
kind of an artist, I believe. Pneumonia, too. He is an old, weak man and
his case is severe. There is no hope for him; but he goes to the
hospital today to ease his pain."
The next day, the doctor said to Sue: "She's out of danger. You won. Nutrition and care now -- that's all."
Later that day, Sue came to the bed where Johnsy lay, and put one arm around her.
"I
have something to tell you, white mouse," she said. "Mister Behrman
died of pneumonia today in the hospital. He was sick only two days.
They found him the morning of the first day in his room downstairs
helpless with pain. His shoes and clothing were completely wet and icy
cold. They could not imagine where he had been on such a terrible night.
And
then they found a lantern, still lighted. And they found a ladder that
had been moved from its place. And art supplies and a painting board
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
moved when the wind blew? Ah, darling, it is Behrman's masterpiece – he
painted it there the night that the last leaf fell."

You have heard the story "The Last Leaf" by O.Henry. Your storyteller
was Barbara Klein. This story was adapted by Shelley Gollust and
produced by Lawan Davis.