Some days later, as we were walking along the road with our sheep, I found a piece of rope that had fallen off a cart. I picked it up and, just for fun, I tied it around my arm. Before long, I noticed that the rope was hurting me. “Look, this hurts!” I said to my cousins. “We could tie it round our waist and offer this sacrifice to God.” The poor children promptly fell in with my suggestion. We then set about dividing it between the three of us, by placing it across a stone and striking it with the sharp edge of another one that served as a knife. Either because of the thickness or roughness of the rope, or sometimes we tied it too tightly, this instrument of penance often caused us terrible suffering. Now and then, Jacinta could not keep back her tears, so great was the discomfort this caused her. Whenever I urged her to remove it, she replied: “No! I want to offer this sacrifice to Our Lord in reparation, and for the conversion of sinners.”
Another day we were playing, picking little plants off the wall and pressing them in our hands to hear them crack. While Jacinta was plucking these plants, she happened to catch hold of some nettles and stung herself. She no sooner felt the pain than she squeezed them more tightly in her hands, and said to us: “Look! Look! Here is something else with which we can mortify ourselves!” From that time on, we used to hit our legs occasionally with nettles, so as to offer to God yet another sacrifice. If I am not mistaken, it was also during this month that we acquired the habit of giving our lunch to our little poor children, as I have already described to Your Excellency in the account about Jacinta. It was during this month too, that my mother began to feel a little more at peace. She would say: “If there were just one more person who had seen something, why then, I might believe! But among all those people, they’re the only ones who saw anything!”
Now, during this past month, various people were saying that they had seen different things. Some had seen Our Lady, others, various signs in the sun, and so on. My mother declared: “I used to think before, that if there were just one other person who saw anything, then I’d believe; but now, so many people say they have seen something, and I still don’t believe!” My father also began, about then, to come to my defense, and to silence those who started scolding me; as he used to say: “We don’t know if it’s true, but neither do we know if it’s a lie.” Then it was my uncle and aunt, wearied out by the troublesome demands of all these outsiders who were continually wanting to see us and speak to us, began to send their son John out to pasture the flock, and they themselves remained home with Jacinta and Francisco. Shortly afterwards, they ended by selling the sheep altogether.
As I did not enjoy any other company, I started to go out alone with my sheep. As I’ve already told Your Excellency, whenever I happened to be nearby, Jacinta and her brother would come to join me; and when the pasture was at a distance they would be waiting for me on the way home. I can truly say that these were really happy days. Alone, in the midst of my sheep, whether on the tops of the hills or in the depths of the valleys below, I contemplated the beauty of the Heavens and thanked the good God for all the graces He had bestowed on me. When the voice of one of my sisters broke in on my solitude, calling me to go back home to talk to some person or other who had come looking for me, I felt a keen displeasure, and my only consolation was to be able to offer up to our dear Lord yet another sacrifice. On a certain day, three gentlemen came to speak to us. After questioning, which was anything but pleasant, they took their leave with this remark: “See that you decide to tell that secret of yours. If you don’t, the Administrator has every intention of taking your lives!” Jacinta, her face lighting up with a joy that she made no effort to hide, said: “How wonderful! I so love Our Lord and Our Lady, and this way we’ll be seeing them soon!” The rumor got round that the Administrator had every intention to kill us. This led my aunt, who was married and lived in Casais, to come to our house with the express purpose of taking us home with her, for, as she explained: “I live in another district and, therefore, this Administrator cannot lay hands on you there.” But her plan was never carried out, because we were unwilling to go, and replied: “If they kill us, it’s all the same! We’ll go to heaven!”