Ida a Novel by Gertrude Stein, Logan Esdale Read Free Book Online

Ida.
    And Ida began her life in Washington. In a little while there were more of them there who sat down and stood up and leaned. Then they came in and went out. This made it useful to them and to Ida.
    Ida said. I am not careful. I do not win him to come away. If he goes away I will not have him. Ida said I can count any one up to ten. When I count up to ten I stop counting. When she said that they listened to her. They were taken with her beginning counting and she counted from one to ten. Of course they listened to her.
    Ida knew that. She knew that it is not easy to count while anybody listens to them, but it is easy to listen to them while they are counting.
    More and more came to see Ida. Frederick came to see Ida.
    Little by little Frederick fell in love with Ida. Ida did not stop him. He did not say that he was in love with her. He did not say that, not that.
    And then he was and then they were all there together.
    He married her and she married him.
    Then suddenly not at all suddenly, they were sent there, he was in the army, they got up and had decided to leave for Ohio. Yesterday or today they would leave for Ohio.
    When they got to Ohio, Ohio is a state, it is only spelled with four letters. All of a sudden there they were in Ohio.
    Ohio very likely was as large as that.
    Everybody said to Ida and they said it to Frederick too. Smile at me please smile at me.
    Ida smiled.
    They settled down in Ohio.
    What did they do in Ohio.
    Well they did not stay there long.
    They went to Texas.
    There they really settled down.
    It is easier for an officer in the army to settle down in Texas than in Ohio.
    Ida said one day.
    Is there anything strange in just walking along.
    One day in Texas it was not an accident, believe it or not, a lizard did sit there. It was almost black all over and curled, with yellow under and over, hard to tell, it was so curled, but probably under.
    Ida was not frightened, she thought she was thinking. She thought she heard everybody burst out crying and then heard everybody calling out, it is not Ohio, it is Texas, it is not Ohio.
    Ida was funny that way, it was so important that all these things happened to her just when and how they did.
    She settled down and she and Frederick stayed there until they were not there together or anywhere.
    All this time Ida was very careful.
    Everything that happened to her was not strange. All along it was not strange Ida was not strange.
    It is so easy not to be a mother.
    This too happened to Ida.
    She never was a mother.
    Not ever.
    Her life in Ohio which turned out to be her life in Texas went on just like that. She was not a mother. She was not strange. She just knew that once upon a time there was a necessity to know that they would all leave Texas. They did not leave Texas all together but they all left Texas. She left Texas and he left Texas, he was Frederick, and they left Texas. They were all the people they knew when they were in Texas.
    As they one and all left Texas, they all fastened their doors and as they fastened their doors nobody saw them leave. That is a way to leave.
    Ida always left everywhere in some way. She left Texas in this way. So did they.
    She left Texas never to return.
    She never went back anywhere so why would she go back to Ohio and to Texas. She never did. Ida never did.
    She did not go back to Frederick either.
    Ida never did.
    She did not remember just how many years she had been with Frederick and in Ohio and in Texas.
    She did not remember even when she was with him and there because when she was there she did not count, that is she could count up to ten but it did not give her any pleasure to count then.
    How pleasant it is to count one two three four five six seven, and then stop and then go on counting eight nine and then ten or eleven.
    Ida just loved to do that but as she certainly was not in Ohio or in Texas that long and certainly not with Frederick that long counting was not anything to do.
    Ida liked to be spoken