‘I’m from the State of Maine,’ Sue said to Johnsy. ‘I draw pictures for stories in magazines.’
‘I’m from California,’ Johnsy said to Sue. ‘But I want to go to Italy. I want to paint a picture of the Bay of Naples!’ The two girls talked happily for an hour – about art, about clothes, about food.
Soon after their first meeting, Sue and Johnsy moved into a studio apartment together. Their rooms were at the top of an old brick house in Greenwich Village. In December, it was very cold in New York. Snow fell and there was ice in the ground. Many people in the city became ill. The illness was called pneumonia. The doctors tried to help the sick people, but many of them died.
That month, Johnsy had pneumonia. She was very ill. She lay in her bed and she did not move. A doctor visited her every day. But Johnsy was not getting better.
One morning, the doctor spoke quietly to Sue outside Johnsy’s room. ‘I can’t help her,’ the doctor said. ‘She is very sad. She doesn’t want to live. Someone must make her happy again.