Adam and Thomas

Chapter 16

After that Adam began to steal in and milk the cow. The fresh milk nourished them. Every day they practiced running in a crouch, finding hiding places, and climbing trees. Thomas was glad to be running with Adam. If they hadn’t been weak, they would have exercised more. The raspberries and blueberries and the bit of milk did nourish them, but not enough. “Bread, bread,” Thomas called out from time to time, and they both laughed.

They saw Mina milking the cow again. Adam called to her in a whisper, “Mina, Adam and Thomas are here. If you bring us some bread, we’ll be very grateful.”

Mina didn’t respond.

Mina’s father died when she was five, and her mother worked as a housekeeper. They were poor, but her mother made sure that poverty didn’t shame them. She dressed Mina in nice clothes and bought her notebooks and textbooks.

“Are you certain it’s Mina?” Thomas asked repeatedly.

“I’m 100 percent sure.”

Still wondering how they could get solid food, they returned to the meadow and hid behind a tree near the edge to get as close as they could to Mina. Then they looked down and found half a loaf of bread and a piece of cheese wrapped in an old newspaper.

“I wasn’t wrong,” Adam called out.

They sat down by the brook. Adam cut a slice of bread and a piece of cheese for each of them with his jackknife, and they could barely believe their eyes.

They wanted to rejoice, but they were afraid. The long days of hunger had weakened them. The fresh bread they gobbled down stuck between their throats and their stomachs and hurt them.

“In the future we’ll eat more slowly,” said Thomas.

They drank water from the brook. The water washed down the bread, and the pain passed.

“Someone is watching over us,” said Adam. “Do you mean that God is watching over us?” Adam was silent. Tears filled his eyes.

The next evening, when Mina came to milk the cow, Adam approached the tree closest to her and called out in a whisper, “Thank you, Mina. We hadn’t eaten bread for many days.”

This time, too, Mina didn’t respond. After she finished milking, she took the stool and the pail and disappeared.

Adam and Thomas watched her in amazement. She had changed in a short time. She hadn’t grown taller, but her face and her body were fuller. When she milked, she looked like a peasant girl.

“Those changes didn’t come easily to her,” said Adam.

“How do you know?”

“Changing isn’t a simple matter. It takes determination. You have to alter all the movements your body is used to. You have to block your thoughts and speak in a language that isn’t yours. Lucky for us we’re in the forest and not with Diana, where we were supposed to hide, or who knows where. At Diana’s we would have been different creatures, swineherds, or who knows what. We’re suffering from hunger, but we’re still who we were. We have the forest and the brook, and we’re speaking the language we’re used to.” Adam spoke at length and with emotion.

“Mina has changed, but apparently not in her soul. She took the risk of bringing us bread. You have to admire her courage,” said Thomas.

“That’s true. If it sounded like I was looking down on her for changing, I apologize,” said Adam.

Every few days she left them a hunk of bread or a piece of corn pie. Once she left them a big red tomato.

“God sent Mina to us to rescue us from hunger,” said Adam.

“Does the messenger know she’s a messenger, or does she do it without knowing?” Thomas spoke in his father’s words.

“You’re great at phrasing things,” said Adam.

“I have to be careful. Sometimes Mom and Dad speak from my mouth,” said Thomas, laughing.