The Last Leaf

In a top-floor studio in Greenwich Village, two young artists—Sue from Maine and Johnsy from California—pool their resources to wait out the winter. But in November, an unseen stranger the doctors call Pneumonia begins stalking the maze of the neighborhood's narrow, moss-grown streets. When Johnsy falls ill, she turns her face toward the window and begins to count the falling ivy leaves on the brick wall opposite, convinced that when the final leaf drops, she will die.

Downstairs lives an aging, unsuccessful painter who has spent decades waiting to begin his masterpiece. As the autumn storms strip the vine bare, he mounts an intervention against the freezing weather and the young woman's fatalistic countdown.

First published in 1907, O. Henry's narrative of illness and altruism in early twentieth-century New York established a template for the American short story and the mechanics of the twist ending.