Almost burned down the house

E. & C. had colds and I did not want to wrestle C. & A. in church today so I let A. stay home. So the first two hours went ok then C. got wiggly. However I could not leave because I hitched a ride with my in-laws to church. So then we left and when we got back home and walked in from the basement and asked E. what he was cooking because it was burning. So we looked in the oven nothing, microwave nothing, the wood stove was not burning something plasticie. Then I began to walk around and in the front room chandelier A. had thrown a rag on the light bulb and it started to burn. The light bulb was black and so was the rag and smoke was all over. I then turned off the light and E's dad threw the rag outside. I then asked do you have smoke detectors? Yes, then I replied well it should have gone off with this much smoke, then E's mom said the batteries must be dead. So luckily we got home when we did or we could have had more problems.