ne. 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.

"I think so myself," said Kate. "I always have. I think there is a
God, and that Father is facing Him now, and finding out for the first
time in his experience that he is very small potatoes, and what he
planned and slaved for amounted to nothing, in the scheme of the
universe. I can't imagine Father being subdued by anything on earth,
but it appeals to