When I was in high school, we were required to read the classics as part of our assignment in Literature class. One of the authors that stuck in my mind all these years was good old O. Henry. Perhaps one of his more famous stories is The Gift of the Magi,  which I read several times through the years. I read it to my son when he was little, and he read it several times himself when he was grown.  The Last Leaf  is also as intriguing and character-building in nature as The Gift of the Magi.

The Last Leaf  is a touching story of friendship, love, and self-sacrifice. The opening chapter introduces the reader to Johnsy, a painter, and her new roommate Sue, a promising sculptor. The two women shared an apartment and artist's studio. As time passed, a strong friendship grew out of their passion for art and the youthful hopes and dreams they shared with each other.

Old Mr. Behrman lived on the ground floor beneath them. He was an artist, too, but for forty years he had wielded the brush without any success to speak of. He had been always about to paint a masterpiece, but had never yet begun it. For several years he had painted nothing except now and then a daub in the line of commerce or advertising. He earned a little by serving as a model to those young artists who could not afford to pay a professional.

One cold November day, Johnsy contracted pneumonia, and the prognosis wasn't good. The doctor said that she had a one in ten chances of surviving and that chance was for her to want to live. Sue took care of her roommate but in spite of her nursing care, Johnsy continued to decline.

Johnsy was looking out the window one day and counting--counting backward--twelve, eleven, then later ten, nine, eight, then seven. What in the world is she counting?  wondered Sue looking out the window. There was only a bare, dreary yard to be seen, and the blank side of the brick house twenty feet away. An old, old ivy vine, gnarled and decayed at the roots, climbed half way up the brick wall. The cold breath of autumn had stricken its leaves from the vine until its skeleton branches clung, almost bare, to the crumbling bricks.

Johnsy was counting the remaining leaves left on the old ivy vine outside. She was sure that when the last leaf fell, she, too, would be gone.

Sue told Mr. Behrman of Johnsy's fancy, and how she feared she would, indeed, light and fragile as a leaf herself, float away, when her slight hold upon the world grew weaker. Old Behrman, with his red eyes plainly streaming, shouted his contempt and derision for such idiotic imaginings. He had never heard of such a thing--people dying because leaves fall off from a confounded vine. It was foolishness, he said.

Unbeknown to anyone and battling his own health problems, Mr. Behrman defied the cold, wet night to paint a leaf on the outdoor vine to restore the dying Johnsy's will to live.

When Sue awoke from an hour's sleep the next morning she found Johnsy with dull, wide-open eyes staring at the drawn green shade.

"Pull it up; I want to see,"  she ordered, in a whisper.

Wearily Sue obeyed.

But, lo! after the beating rain and fierce gusts of wind that had endured through the livelong night, there yet stood out against the brick wall one ivy leaf. It was the last one on the vine. Still dark green near its stem, with its serrated edges tinted with the yellow of dissolution and decay, it hung bravely from the branch some twenty feet 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."

The day wore away, and even through the twilight they could see the lone ivy leaf clinging to its stem against the wall. And then, with the coming of the night the north wind was again loosed, while the rain still beat against the windows and pattered down from the low Dutch eaves.

When it was light enough Johnsy, the merciless, commanded that the 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 stirring her chicken broth over the gas stove.

"I've been a bad girl, Sudie,"  said Johnsy.  "Something has made that last leaf stay there to show me how wicked I was. It is a sin to want to die. You may bring a me a little broth now, and some milk with a little port in it, and - no; bring me a hand-mirror first, and then pack some pillows about me, and I will sit up and watch you cook."

The next day the doctor said to Sue: "She's out of danger. You won. Nutrition and care now - that's all."

And that afternoon Sue came to the bed where Johnsy lay, contentedly knitting a very blue and very useless woollen shoulder scarf, and put one arm around her, pillows and all.

"I have something to tell you, white mouse,"  she said. "Mr. Behrman died of pneumonia today in the hospital. He was ill only two days. The janitor found him the morning of the first day in his room downstairs helpless with pain. His shoes and clothing were wet through and icy cold. They couldn't imagine where he had been on such a dreadful night. And then they found a lantern, still lighted, and a ladder that had been dragged from its place, and some scattered brushes, and a palette 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 fluttered or moved when the wind blew? Ah, darling, it's Behrman's masterpiece - he painted it there the night that the last leaf fell."

What self-sacrificing love!  Jesus Christ laid down His life not just to give us the will to live but to give us eternal life. And we, in turn, are to lay down our lives for others.  "Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren." 1 John 3:16.  Jesus is our Example, and He desires us to be like Him in character. He is sitting ever so patiently for His portrait in every believer. When His character of self-sacrificing love, forebearance, patience, meekness, tenderness, and mercy is manifested in His people, that would be His Grand Masterpiece!