Ida a Novel Read Online Free

that.
    So that is the way life went on.
    There was Winnie.
    Once in a while a man is a man and he comes from Omaha, where they catch all they can. He almost caught Ida. It happened like this.
    He went out one night and he saw Winnie. Winnie was always there. She went everywhere.
    He followed Winnie.
    He did it very well.
    The next day he went and rang the bell.
    He asked for Winnie.
    Of course there was no Winnie.
    That was not surprising and did not surprise him.
    He could not ask for Ida because he did not know Ida. He almost asked for Ida. Well in a way he did ask for Ida.
    Ida came.
    Ida was not the same as Winnie. Not at all.
    Ida and he, the man from Omaha said. How do you do. And then they said. Good-bye.
    The Omaha man went away. He did follow Winnie again but he never rang the bell again. He knew better.
    Ida lived alone. She tried to make her dog Iris notice birds but he never did. If he had she would have had more to do because she would have had to notice them too.
    It is funny the kind of life Ida led but all the same it kept her going day after day.
    But all the same something did happen.
    One day she was there doing nothing and suddenly she felt very funny. She knew she had lost something. She looked everywhere and she could not find out what it was that she had lost but she knew she had lost something. All of a sudden she felt or rather she heard somebody call to her. She stopped, she really had not been walking but anyway she stopped and she turned and she heard them say, Ida is that you Ida. She saw somebody coming toward her. She had never seen them before. There were three of them, three women. But soon there was only one. That one came right along. It is funny isn’t it. She said. Yes said Ida. There, said the woman, I told them I knew it was.
    That was all that happened.
    They all three went away.
    Ida did not go on looking for what she had lost, she was too excited.
    She remembered that one day in front of the house a man with a hat a cane and a bottle stopped. He put down the cane but then he did not know what to do with his hat, so he began again. He put his cane into a window so that stuck out, and he hung his hat on the cane and then with the bottle he stood up. This, he said, is a bottle and in it there is wine, and I who am drunk am going to drink this wine. He did.
    And then he said.
    It might be like having a handkerchief in a drawer and never taking it out but always knowing it was there. It would always be new and nobody ever would be through with having it there.
    What is peace what is war said the man, what is beauty what is ice, said the man. Where is my hat said the man, where is my wine said the man, I have a cane, he said, I have a hat, he said, I have a bottle full of wine. Goodbye, he said, but Ida had gone away.
    She had certain habits. When she counted ten she always counted them on her fingers to make ten times ten. It was very hard to remember how many times she had counted ten when once she had counted them because she had to remember twice and then when she had counted a hundred then what happened. Really nothing. Ida just sat down. Living alone as she did counting was an occupation.
    She was walking and she saw a woman and three children, two little girls and a littler boy. The boy was carrying a black coat on his arms, a large one.
    A woman said to Ida, I only like a white skin. If when I die I come back again and I find I have any other kind of skin then I will be sure that I was very wicked before.
    This made Ida think about talking.
    She commenced to talk. She liked to see people eat, in restaurants and wherever they eat, and she liked to talk. You can always talk with army officers. She did.
    Army officers do not wear their uniforms in the cities, soldiers do but officers do not. This makes conversation with them easier and more difficult.
    If an officer met Ida he said, how do you do and she answered very well I thank you. They were as polite as that.
    He said to her.