The Last Leaf

In the early twentieth century, two single women artists decide to share a studio apartment in Greenwich Village. One elderly artist who also lives in the village, boasts of the masterpiece he will one day paint, yet he has created nothing substantial for decades. Then, in November, one of the women contracts a deadly pneumonia and decides she will die when the last leaf drops from the ivy she sees from the window. The ending is wonderfully typical of O. Henry. Check out the story online.