Mother and sisters had no time to escape.

It was early morning.

I was a boy of eighteen, and was out on the farm doing my chores.

When I saw smoke and came back, the house was a burning mass, and--it was all over." "Where was your father ?" "My father is dead." "But he was there--at the time of the fire ?" "Yes.

He was there." He had suddenly ceased to be communicative, and she instinctively asked no more questions, except as to the cause of the conflagration.
"Probably an explosion of coal-oil.