In the autumn season, the ibis lit in the bleeding tree, and the flower garden was filled with rotting magnolia petals and ironweeds. The last graveyard flowers were blooming, and their scent drifted across the cotton field and through every room of the house. As summer faded and time passed, a grindstone stood outside the kitchen door, and the oriole nest in the elm seemed to die up in the leaves.
The author recalls Doodle, a crazy brother born when the author was six. He was a disappointment, appearing all head and red, shrivelled like an old man's. His parents named him William Armstrong, which sounds good only on a tombstone. The author thought he was smart enough to box with and perch with in the top fork of the great pine behind the barn, but his mother told him that even if William Armstrong lived, he might not be "all there."
The author began to make plans to kill William Armstrong by smothering him with a pillow, but one afternoon, as the author watched him, his head poked between the iron posts of the foot of the bed. He smiled at the author and began to talk. As long as he lay all the time in bed, they called him William Armstrong, even though it was formal and sounded as if they were referring to one of their ancestors.
As Doodle began to crawl around on the deerskin rug and begin to talk, something had to be done about his name.
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Scarlet Ibis summary
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