Story Summary

In a New York artists' colony, young Johnsy falls gravely ill with pneumonia. She decides that when the last ivy leaf falls from the vine outside her window, she will die. Her friend Sue tries to cheer her but fails. Their old neighbor Behrman — an artist who dreams of painting his masterpiece — secretly goes out in a freezing storm and paints a single leaf on the wall. The painted leaf never falls. Johnsy recovers. But Behrman dies of pneumonia — the illness he caught while painting the leaf in the storm.