The Scarlet Ibis
By James Hurst.
父子雄兵下载It was in the clove of asons, summer was dead but autumn had not yet been born, that the ibis lit in the bleeding tree. The flower garden was stained with rotting brown magnolia petals and ironweeds grew rank amid the pu rple phlox. The five o'clocks by the chimney still marked tim e, but the oriole nest in the elm was untenanted and rocked back and forth like an empty cradle. The last graveyard flowers were blooming, and their smell drifted across the cotton field and through every room of our hou, speaking softly the nam es of our dead. It's strange hat all this is still so clear to m e, now that that summer has since fled and tim e has had its way. A grindstone stands where the bleeding tree stood, just outside the kitchen door, and now if an oriole sings in the elm, its song em s to die up in the leaves, a
silvery dust.
But som etimes (like right now), as I sit in the cool, green-draped parlor, the grindstone begins to turn, and tim e with all its changes is ground away--and I remember Doodle. Doodle was just about the craziest brother a boy ever had. Of cour, he wasn't a crazy crazy like old Miss Leedie, who was in lo
ve with President Wilson and wrote him a letter every day, but was a nice crazy, like someone you meet in your dreams.
He was born when I as six and was, from the outt, a disappoint m ent. He em ed all head, with a tiny body which was red and shriveled like an old m an's. Everybody thought he was going to die. Daddy had Mr. Heath, the carpenter, build a little mahogany coffin for him. But he didn't die, and when he was three m onths old, Mam a and Daddy decided they m ight as well name him. They nam ed him William Armstrong, which was like tying a big tail on a sm all kite. Such a nam e sounds good only on a tom bstone.
I thought m ylf pretty sm art at m any things, like holding my breath, running, jumping, or clim bing the vines in Old Wom an Swam p, and I wanted m ore than anything el someone to box with, and someone to perch with in the top fork of the great pine behind the barn, where across the fields and swam ps you could e the a. But Mama, crying, told me that even if William Armstrong lived, he would never do the things with m e. He might not, she sobbed, even be "all there."
It was bad enough having an invalid brother, but having one who possibly was not all there was unbearable, so began to m ake plans to kill him by smothering him with a pillow. However, one aftern
oon as I watched him, my head poked between the iron posts of the foot of the bed, he looked stra ight at m e and grinned. I skipped through the room s, down the echoing halls, shouting, "Mama, he smiled. he's all there! He's all there!" and he was. As long as he lay all the time in bed, we called him William Armstrong, even though it was form al and sounded as if we were referring to one of our ancestors, but with his creeping around on the deerskin rug and beginning to talk, som ething had to be done about his name.
It was I who renam ed him. When he crawled, he crawled backwards, as if he were in rever and couldn't change gears. If you called him, he'd turn around as if he were going in the other direction, then he'd back right up to you to be picked up. Crawling backward made him look like a doodlebug, so I began to call him Doodle, and in tim e even Mama and Daddy thought it was a better nam e than William Arm strong. Yes.
福州市花
Renaming m y brother was perhaps the kindest thing I ever did for him, becau nobody expects much for som eone called Doodle. Although Doodle learned to crawl, he showed no signs of walking, but he wasn't idle. He talked so much that we all quit listening to what he said.
It was about this tim e that Daddy built him a go-cart and I had to pull him around. If I so much as pic
ked up my cap, he's start crying to go with m e and Mama would call from wherever she was, "Take Doodle with you." He was a burden in many ways. The doctor had said that he m ustn't get too excited, too hot, too cold, or too tired and that he m ust always be treated gently. A long list of don'ts went with him, all of which I ignored once we got out of the hou. His skin was very nsitive, and he had to wear a big straw hat whenever he went out. When the going got rough and he had to climb to the sides of the go-cart, the hat slipped all the way down over his ears. He was a sight. Finally, I could e I was licked. Doodle was m y brother and he was going to cling to m e forever, no m atter what I did, so I dragged him across the burning cotton field to share with him the only beauty I knew, Old Woman Swamp. His eyes were round with wonder as he gazed about him, and his little hands began to stroke the rubber grass. Then he began to cry.
"For heaven's sake, what's the m atter?" I asked, annoyed.
"It's so pretty," he said. "So pretty, pretty, pretty."
After that day Doodle and I often went down into Old Woman Swamp. There is within me (and with sadness I have watched it in others) a knot of cruelty borne by the stream of love, much as our blood sometimes bears the ed of our destruction, and at tim es I was m ean to Doodle. One day I took hi
m up to the barn loft and showed him his casket, telling him now we all had believed he would die. It was covered with a film of Paris green sprinkled to kill the rats, and screech owls had built a nest inside it.
Doodle studied the m ahogany box for a long time, then said, "It's not mine."
"It is," I said. "And before I'll help you down from the loft, you're going to have to touch it."
"I won't touch it," he said sullenly.
"Then I'll leave you here by yourlf," I threatened, and made as if I were go ing down. Doodle was frightened of being left.
"Don't go leave m e, Brother," he cried, and he leaned toward the coffin. His hand, trem bling, reached out, and when he touched the casket he scream ed. A screech owl flapped out of the box into our faces, scaring us and covering us with Paris green. Doodle was paralyzed, so I put him on m y shoulder and carried him down the ladder, and even when we were outside in the bright sunshine, he clung to m e, crying. "Don't leave m e. Don't leave m e."
When Doodle was five years old, I was embarrasd at having a brother of that age who couldn't wal
k, so I t out to teach him. We were down in Old Woman Swamp
and it was spring and the sick-sweet sm ell of bay flowers hung everywhere like a mournful song.
"I'm going to teach you to walk, Doodle," I said.
"I can't walk, Brother," he said.
描写英雄的诗句"Who says so?" I demanded.
"Mama, the doctor--everybody."
"Oh, you can walk," I said, and I took him by the arms and stood him up. He collapd onto the grass like a half em pty flour sack. It was as if he had no bones in his little legs. "I'm going to teach you to walk." It em ed so hopeless from the beginning that it's a miracle I didn't give up. But all of us must have something or som eone to be proud of, and Doodle had becom e mine. I did not know then that pride is a wonderful, terrible thing, a ed that bears two vines, life and death. Every day that summer we went to the pine beside the stream of Old Wom an Swam p, and I put him on his feet at least a hundred times each afternoon.
Occasionally I too becam e discouraged becau it didn't em as if he was trying, and I would say, "Doodle, don't you want to earn to walk?" He'd nod his head, and I'd say, "Well, if you don't keep trying, you'll never learn." Then I'd paint for him a picture of us as old m en, white-haired, him with a long white beard and m e still pulling him around in the go-cart. This never failed to m ake him try again.
Finally one day, after m any weeks of practicing, he stood alone for a few conds. When he fell, I grabbed him in my arms and hugged him, our laughter pealing through the swam p like a ringing bell. Now we know it could be done. Hope no longer hid in the dark palmetto thicket but perched like a cardinal in the lacy toothbrush tree, brilliantly visible. "Yes, yes," I c ried, and he cried it too, and the grass beneath us was soft and the sm ell of the swamp was sweet.
At breakfast on our chon day, when Mama, Daddy, and Aunt Nicey were in the dining room, I brought Doodle to the door in the go-cart just as usual and head them turn their backs, m aking them cross their hearts and hope to die if they peeked. I helped Doodle up, and when he was standing alone I let them look. There wasn't a sound as Doodle walked slowly across the room and sat down at his place at the table. Then Mam a began to cry and ran over to him, hugging him and kissing him. Daddy hugged him too, so I went to Aunt Nicey, who was thanks praying in the doorway, and be
车图片大全gan to waltz her around. We danced together quite well until she cam e down on m y big toe with her brogans, hurting me so badly I thought I was crippled for life. Doodle told them it was I who had taught him to walk, so everyone wanted to hug m e, and I began to cry.
They did not know that I did it for mylf; that pride, who slave I was, spoke t o me louder than all their voices, and that Doodle walked only becau I was ashamed of having a crippled brother. Within a few months, Doodle had learned to walk well and his go-cart was put up in the barn loft (it is still there) beside his little m ahogany coffin.
Once I had succeeded in teaching Doodle to walk, I began to believe in m y own infallibility, and I prepared a terrific development program for him, unknown to Mam a and Daddy, of cour. I would teach him to run, to swim, to climb trees, and to fight. He, too, now believed in my infallibility, so we t the deadline for the accom plishments less than a year away, when, it had been decided, Doodle could start school. On hot days, Doodle and I went down to Horhead Landing, and I gave him swimming lessons or showed him how to row a boat. Som etim es we descended into the cool greenness of Old Woman Swamp and climbed the rope vines or boxed scientifically beneath the pine where he had learned to walk. Promi hung about us like the leaves, and wherever we looked, ferns unfurled and birds broke into song.
和工作
So we cam e to that clove of asons. School was only a few weeks away, and Doodle was far behind schedule. He could barely clear the ground when climbing up the rope vines, and his swimming was certainly not passable. We decided to double our efforts, to m ake that last drive and reach our pot of gold. I m ade him swim until he turned red and his eyes becam e glazed. Once, he could go no further, so he collapd on the ground and began to cry.
"Aw, com e on, Doodle," I urged. "You can do it. Do you want to be different from everybody el when you start school?"
"Does it m ake any difference?"
"It certainly does," I said. "Now, com e on," and I helped him up. As we slipped through dog days, Doodle began to loo k feverish, and Mama felt his forehead, asking him if he felt ill. At night he didn't sleep well, and som etimes he had night m ares, crying out until I touched him and said, "Wake up, Doodle. Wake up." It was Saturday noon, just a few days before school was to start. I should have already admitted defeat, but m y pride wouldn't let m e. The excitem ent of our program had now been gone for weeks, but still we kept on with a tired doggedness. It was too late to turn back, for we had both wandered too far into a net of expectations and had left no crumbs behind. Daddy, Mama,
Doodle, and I were ated at the dining-room table having lunch. It was a hot day, with all the windows and doors open in ca a breeze should com e. In the kitchen Aunt Nicey was humming softly. Suddenly, from out in the yard, cam e a strange croaking noi. Doodle stopped eating, with a piece of bread poid ready for his mouth, his eyes popped round like two blue buttons.
"What's that?" he whispered. I jumped up, knocking over m y chair, and had reached the door when Mama called, "Pick up the chair, sit down again, and say excu m e." By the tim e I had done this, Doodle had excud himlf and had slipped out into the yard.
He was looking up into the bleeding tree. "It's a great big red bird!" he called. The bird croaked loudly again, and Mama and Daddy cam e out into the yard. We shaded our eyes with our hands against the hazy glare of the sun and peered up through the still leaves. On the topm ost branch a bird the size of a chicken, with scarlet f eathers and long legs, was precariously. Its wings hung down looly, and as we watched, a feather dropped away and floated slowly down through the green leaves. Doodle's hands were clasped at his throat, and I had never en him stand still so long.
"What is it?" he asked. At that m oment the bird began to flutter, but the wings were uncoordinated, and amid much flapping and a spray of flying feathers, it tum bled down, bumping through the limbs
of the bleeding tree and landing at our feet with a thud. Its long, graceful neck jerked twice into an S, then straightened out, and the bird was still. A white veil cam e over the eyes and the long white beak unhinged. Its legs were crosd and its clawlike feet were delicately curved at rest. Even death did not m ar its grace, for it lay on the earth like a broken va of red flowers, and we stood around it, awed by its exotic beauty.
"Go bring me the bird book," said Daddy. I ran into the hou and brought back the bird book. As we watched, Daddy thumbed through its pages. "It's a scarlet ibis," he said, pointing to a picture. "It lives in the tropics--South Am erica to Florida. A storm must have brought it here." Sadly, we all looked back at the bird. A scarlet ibis! How many miles it had traveled to die like this, in our yard, beneath the bleeding tree.
"Dead birds is bad luck," said Aunt Nicey, poking her head from the kitchen door. "Specially red dead birds!"什么是业务
As soon as I had finished eating, Doodle and I hurried off to Horhead Landing. Tim e 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. The sun, gilded with the yellow cast of autumn, still burned fiercely, but the dark green woods
through which we pasd were shady and cool. When we reached the landing, Doodle said he was too tired to swim, so we got into a skiff and floated down the creek with the tide. Doodle did not speak and kept his head turned away, letting one hand trail limply in the water.
After we had drifted a long way, I put the oars in place and m ade Doodle row back against the tide. Black clouds began to gather in the southwest, and he kept watching them, trying to pull the oars a little faster. When we reached Horhead Landing, lightning was playing across half the sky and thunde r roared out, hiding even the sound of the a. The sun disappeared and darkness descended. Doodle was both tired and frightened, and when he stepped from the skiff he collapd onto the mud, nding an armada of fiddler crabs rustling off into the m arsh grass. I helped him up, and as he wiped the m ud off his trours, he smiled at m e ashamedly. He had failed and we both knew it, so we started back hom e, racing the storm.景雪峰
The lightening was near now, and from fear he walked so clo behind me he kept stepping on my heels. The faster I walked, the faster he walked, so I began to run. The rain was coming, roaring through the pines, and then, like a bursting Roman candle, a gum tree ahead of us was shattered by a bolt of lightening. When the deafening peal of thunder had died, and in the moment before the rain arrived, I heard Doodle, who had fallen behind, cry out, "Brother, Brother, don't leave m e! Don't leav
e m e!"
The knowledge that Doodle's and my plans had com e to naught was bitter, and that streak of cruelty within me awakened. I ran as fast as I could, leaving him far behind with a wall of rain dividing us. The drops stung m y face like nettles, and the wind flared the wet glistening leaves of the bordering trees. Soon I could hear his voice no more. I hadn't run too far before I becam e tired, and the flood of childish spite evanesced as well. I stopped and waited for Doodle. The sound of rain was everywhere, but the wind had died and it fell straight down in parallel paths like ropes hanging from the sky.
>encourage的名词
