In contrast to Jacinta, Francisco was quite different. He had an easy manner, and was always friendly and smiling, playing with all the children without distinction. He did not rebuke anybody. All he did was to go aside, whenever he saw anything that was not as it should be. If he was asked why he went away, he answered: “Because you’re not good,” or “Because I don’t want to play anymore.”
During his illness, the children ran in and out of his room with the greatest, freedom talked to him through the window and asked him if he was feeling better, and so forth. If he was asked whether he wanted some of the children to stay with him and keep him company, he used to say that he preferred not, as he liked to be alone. He would say to me sometimes: “I just like having you here, and Jacinta too.” When grown-ups came to see him, he remained silent, only answering when directly questioned, and then in as few words as possible. People who came to visit him, whether they were neighbors or strangers, often spent long periods sitting by his bedside, and remarked: “I don’t know what it is about Francisco, but it feels so good to be here!”
Some women from the village commented on this one day to my aunt and my mother, after having spent quite a long time in Francisco’s room: “It’s a mystery one cannot fathom! They are children just like any others, they don’t say anything to us, and yet in their presence one feels something one can’t explain, and that makes them different from all the rest.”
“It seems to me that when we go into Francisco’s room, we feel just as we do when we go into a church,” said one of my aunt’s neighbors, a woman named Romana, who apparently did not believe in the Apparitions. There were three others in this group also: the wives of Manuel Faustino, José Marto and José Silva.
I am not surprised that people felt like that, being accustomed to find in everyone else only the preoccupation with material things which goes with an empty, superficial life. Indeed, the very sight of these children was enough to lift their minds to our heavenly Mother, with whom the children were believed to be in communication; to eternity, for they saw how eager, joyful and happy they were at the thought of going there; to God, for they said that they loved Him more than their own parents; and even to hell, for the children warned them that people would go there if they continued to commit sin. Externally, they were, so to speak, children like all others.
But if these good people, so accustomed to the material side of life, had only known how to elevate their minds a little, they would have seen without difficulty that, in these children, there was something that marked them out as being different from all others. I have just remembered something else connected with Francisco, and I am going to relate it here.
A woman called Mariana, from Casa Velha, came one day into Francisco’s room. She was most upset because her husband had driven their son out of the house, and she was asking for the grace that her son will be reconciled with his father. Francisco said to her in reply: “Don’t worry. I’m going to heaven very soon, and when I get there I will ask Our Lady for that grace.” I do not recall just how many days remained before he took his flight to heaven, but what I do remember is that, on the very afternoon of Francisco’s death, the son went for the last time to ask pardon of his father, who had previously refused it because his son would not submit to the conditions imposed.
The boy accepted everything that the father demanded, and peace reigned once again in that home. The boy’s sister, Leocadia by name, later married a brother of Jacinta and Francisco and became the mother of their niece, whom Your Excellency met in Cova da Iria when she was about to enter the Dorotheans.