【文章內(nèi)容簡介】 Mr. Pneumonia was not what you would call a chivalric old gentleman. A mite of a little woman with blood thinned by California zephyrs was hardly fair game for the redfisted, shortbreathed old duffer. But Johnsy he smote。 and she lay, scarcely moving, on her painted iron bedstead, looking through the small Dutch windowpanes at the blank side of the next brick house.One morning the busy doctor invited Sue into the hallway with a shaggy, grey eyebrow.She has one chance in let us say, ten, he said, as he shook down the mercury in his clinical thermometer. And that chance is for her to want to live. This way people have of liningu on the side of the undertaker makes the entire pharmacopoeia look silly. Your little lady has made up her mind that she39。s not going to get well. Has she anything on her mind?She she wanted to paint the Bay of Naples some day. said Sue.Paint? bosh! Has she anything on her mind worth thinking twice a man for instance?A man? said Sue, with a jew39。sharp twang in her voice. Is a man worth but, no, doctor。 there is nothing of the kind.Well, it is the weakness, then, said the doctor. I will do all that science, so far as it may filter through my efforts, can acplish. But whenever my patient begins to count the carriages in her funeral procession I subtract 50 per cent from the curative power of medicines. If you will get her to ask one question about the new winter styles in cloak sleeves I will promise you a oneinfive chance for her, instead of one in ten.After the doctor had gone Sue went into the workroom and cried a Japanese napkin to a pulp. Then she swaggered into Johnsy39。s room with her drawing board, whistling ragtime.Johnsy lay, scarcely making a ripple under the bedclothes, with her face toward the window. Sue stopped whistling, thinking she was asleep.She arranged her board and began a penandink drawing to illustrate a magazine story. Young artists must pave their way to Art by drawing pictures for magazine stories that young authors write to pave their way to Literature.As Sue was sketching a pair of elegant horseshow riding trousers and a monocle of the figure of the hero, an Idaho cowboy, she heard a low sound, several times repeated. She went quickly to the bedside.Johnsy39。s eyes were open wide. She was looking out the window and counting counting backward.Twelve, she said, and little later eleven。 and then ten, and nine。 and then eight and seven, almost together.Sue look solicitously out of the window. What was there to count? 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.What is it, dear? asked Sue.Six, said Johnsy, in almost a whisper. They39。re falling faster now. Three days ago there were almost a hundred. It made my head ache to count them. But now it39。s easy. There goes another one. There are only five left now.Five what, dear? Tell your Sudie.Leaves. On the ivy vine. When the last one falls I must go, too. I39。ve known that for three days. Didn39。t the doctor tell you?Oh, I never heard of such nonsense, plained Sue, with magnificent scorn. What have old ivy leaves to do with your getting well? And you used to love that vine so, you naughty girl. Don39。t be a goosey. Why, the doctor told me this morning that your chances for getting well real soon were let39。s see exactly what he said he said the chances were ten to one! Why, that39。s almost as good a chance as we have in New York when we ride on the street cars or walk past a new building. Try to take some broth now, and let Sudie go back to her drawing, so she can sell the editor man with it, and buy port wine for her sick child, and pork chops for her greedy self.You needn39。t get any more wine, said Johnsy