"We thought it was only the way a-body was with sunstroke, and past pilin' on blankets, we didn't pay much attention. He SAID he was all right, so I went to milk. Before I left I gave him a drink, an' he asked me to feel in his pants pocket an' get the key an' hand him the deed box, till he'd see if everything was right. Said he guessed he'd had a close call. You know how he was. I got him the box and went to do the evening work. I hurried fast as I could. Coming back, clear acrost the yard I smelt burning wool, an' I dropped the milk an' ran. I dunno no more about just what happened 'an you do. The house was full of smoke. Pa was on the floor, most to the sitting-room door, his head and hair and hands awfully burned, his shirt burned off, laying face down, and clear gone. The minute I seen the way he laid, I knew he was gone. The bed was pourin' smoke and one little blaze about six inches high was shootin' up to the top. I got that out, and then I saw most of the fire was smothered between the blankets where he'd thrown them back to get out of the bed. I dunno why he fooled with the lamp. It always stood on the little table in his reach, but it was light enough to read fine print. All I can figure is that the light was going out of his EYES, an' he thought IT WAS GETTIN' DARK, so he tried to light the lamp to see the deeds. He was fingerin' them when I left, but he didn't say he couldn't see them. The lamp was just on the bare edge of the table, the wick way up an' blackened, the chimney smashed on the floor, the bed afire." "Those deeds are burned?" gasped Kate. "All of them? Are they all gone?" "Every last one," said Mrs. Bates. "Well, if ONE is gone, thank God they all are," said Kate. Her mother turned swiftly and caught her arm. "Say that again!" she cried eagerly. "Maybe I'm WRONG about it, but it's what I think," said Kate. "If the boys are crazy over all of them being gone, they'd do murder if part had theirs, and the others had not." Mrs. Bates doubled over on Kate's shoulder suddenly and struggled with an inward spasm. "You poor thing," said Kate. "This is dreadful. All of us know how you loved him, how you worked together. Can you think of anything I can do? Is there any special thing the matter?" "I'm afraid!" whispered Mrs. Bates. "Oh, Katie, I'm so afraid. You know how SET he was, you know how he worked himself and all of us--he had to know what he was doing, when he fought the fire till the shirt burned off him"--her voice dropped to a harsh whisper--"what do you s'pose he's doing now?" Any form of religious belief was a subject that never had been touched upon or talked of in the Bates family. Money was their God, work their religion; Kate looked at her mother curiously. "You mean you believe in after life?" she asked. "Why, I suppose there must be SOMETHING," she said.