Read the excerpt from “The Scarlet Ibis.”
Finally I went back and found him huddled beneath a red nightshade bush beside the road. He was sitting on the ground, his face buried in his arms, which were resting on his drawn-up knees. “Let’s go, Doodle,” I said.
He didn’t answer, so I placed my hand on his forehead and lifted his head. Limply, he fell backwards onto the earth. He had been bleeding from the mouth, and his neck and the front of his shirt were stained in brilliant red.
“Doodle! Doodle!” I cried, shaking him, but there was no answer but the ropy rain. He lay very awkwardly, with his head thrown far back, making his vermillion neck appear unusually long and slim. His little legs, bent sharply at the knees, had never before seemed so fragile, so thin.
In this excerpt, the imagery appeals primarily to which sense to help place the reader in the scene?