"The Scarlet Ibis" Questions

• The story is set during a time when summer is ending and autumn is about to begin.
• The narrator recalls a time long ago, focusing on the memory of his brother, Doodle.
• A grindstone stands where the bleeding tree once was.
• The narrator remembers Doodle while sitting in the green-draped parlor as time is grinding away.
• Doodle was different from other brothers
• He was not "crazy crazy" like Miss Leedie, who wrote letters to President Wilson.
• The narrator was six when Doodle was born, viewing him as a disappointment from the start.
• Doodle appeared mostly head, with a shriveled, red body, making everyone believe he would die.
• Aunt Nicey believed Doodle would live due to being born in a caul, said to be made from Jesus' nightgown.
• The parents named him William Armstrong when he was three months old.
• The narrator was good at things such as holding his breath, running, jumping, or climbing vines.
• He wanted a brother to race, box, and perch with in the top fork of the pine.
• The narrator wanted a brother to do all of those things with.
• Mama told the narrator that William Armstrong may not be able to do these things with him.
• The narrator considered killing William by smothering him with a pillow.
• One afternoon, William smiled at the narrator who yelled to Mama that William was "all there!".
• At two years old, when laid on his stomach, William strained to move himself.
• When William would try to move, he would turn red and then purple before collapsing.
• William eventually learned to crawl during the winter.
• He became part of the family once he began crawling on the rug.
• He was called William Armstrong until he began creeping and talking.
• The narrator renamed him Doodle.
• Doodle crawled backward.
• Aunt Nicey did not agree with the name.
• She believed that "cawl babies should be treated with special respect since they might turn out to be saints".
• Renaming Doodle was the "kindest" thing the narrator ever did for "him, because nobody expects much from someone called Doodle".
• Doodle talked a lot, so the narrator stopped listening to him.
• The narrator pulled Doodle around in a go-cart that Daddy built.
• The narrator ended up having to pull Doodle wherever he went.
• The doctor advised that Doodle mustn't get too excited, too hot, too cold, or too tired.
• The doctor said he Doodle must always be treated gently, but the narrator ignored these instructions outside the house.
• The narrator ran Doodle across the ends of cotton rows and careened him around corners on two wheels to discourage him from going.
• The narrator took Doodle to Old Woman Swamp.

Old Woman Swamp

• The narrator pulled the go-cart through the sawtooth fern and into the green dimness.
• The narrator set him beside a tall pine.
• Doodle was round eyed and began to cry because it was "so pretty".
• Doodle and the narrator went down into Old Women Swamp where they gathered wildflowers and decorated themselves before dropping them in the stream to float away toward the sea.
• The narrator says that there is a knot of cruelty held by the stream of love.
• The narrator one day took Doodle to see his casket that was covered in Paris green.
• Screech owls had built a nest inside it.
• Doodle touched the casket after the narrator threatened to leave him which caused a screech owl to scare them out of it.
• When Doodle was five, the narrator set to teach him to walk.
• It was spring, the "sick-sweet smell of bay flowers hung everywhere like a mournful song".
• The narrator tells Doodle that he is going to teach him to walk.
• They were sitting comfortably on the grass, leaning back against the pine.
• The narrator says "So I won't have to haul you around all the time.".
• Doodle could not do it
• After a while, the narrator eventually got Doodle to stand alone for for a few seconds.
• The narrator grabbed him in his arms and hugged him.
• They laughed through the swamp as hope perched like a cardinal.
• With success imminent, they decided not to tell anyone until he could actually walk.
• They revealed all on Doodle's sixth birthday.
• The family was in the dinning room seated around the table.
• The narrator told them to turn around.
• They made them "cross their hearts and hoped to die if they peeked".
• Doodle walked to his place at the table
• He told them the narrator who had taught him to walk leading everyone to hugging.
• The narrator cried because he "did it for myself; that pride, whose slave I was".
• Doodle walking was because the narrator was "ashamed of having a crippled brother".
• Within months Doodle had learned to walk and his go-cart was put up next to his mahogany coffin.
• They took up lying to pass time together.
• The narrator said Doodle's lies were "twice as crazy"
• Peter with the peacock
• Doodle said that they'll live in Old Woman Swamp and pick dog's tongue for a living and build a house out of whispering leaves.
• They set a deadline for when Doodle could start school.
• They would teach him to run, swim, climb trees, and to fight.
• The narrator gave Doodle swimming lessons and showed him how to row a boat. The narrator also boxed Doodle "scientifically beneath the pine where he learned to walk".
• The summer of 1918 was blighted.
• There was no rain and the crops withered until a hurricane came out of the east and the west.
• Daddy began cursing heaven, hell, the weather, and the Republican Party.
• Strange names were heard such as Chateau-Thierry, Amiens, and Soissons.
• School was a few weeks away and Doodle was far behind schedule so they doubled their efforts.
• Because he couldn't go any further, he "collapsed on the ground and began to cry.""
• The narrator helped him up anyway.
• As they slipped through the dog days, Doodle began to look feverish.
• At night he didn't sleep well.
• It was Saturday noon, just a few days before school was to start.
• The excitement of their program had now been gone for weeks, but still they kept on with a tired doggedness.
• The narrator declared that Doodle did swim.
• Doodle had excused himself and had slipped out into the yard who was looking up into the bleeding tree because of a croaking noise.
• It looked tired and sick.
• The bird dropped the the bird began to flutter and fell landing at their feet with a thud.
• Doodle did not know what is was and repeatedly asked.
• The narrator said they need to get the bird book and find out.
• It was a scarlet ibis that lives in the tropics.
• Doodle was going to bury the bird.
• They watched as Doodle buried the bird in the flower garden.
• They found Doodle pale and lingering just inside the screen door.
• They asked "Did you get the scarlet ibis buried?".
• Doodle nodded his head.
• Time was short, and doodle still had a long way to go if he was going to keep up with the other boys when he started school so they hurried off to Horsehead Landing.
• Doodle was too tired to swim,
• When they reached Horsehead Landing, lightning was playing and thunder roared out, hiding even the sound of the sea so they needed to row back.
• When Doodle stepped from the skiff he collapsed onto the mud.
• He had failed.
• It began to storm and Doodle, who had fallen behind, cry out, “Brother, Brother, don't leave me! Don't leave me!".
• The narrator hadn't run too far before he became tired, and the flood of childish spite evanesced as well.
• Finally the narrator found Doodle huddled beneath a red nightshade bush beside the road who was dead.
• The narrator threw his body above Doodle, crying, sheltering his fallen scarlet ibis from the heresy of rain