CLINTON — Tait Francis gets ready for his daily postal run like he would any other day: sorting, sifting through mail to be delivered — with little pretense. You’d never know it, but he is a hero.

“He paid attention when I didn’t know to pay attention,” Tammy James said.

Francis saved James and her sons from a burning home. Though, he’s way too modest to tell you.

James shudders when she thinks about that day, that knock at the door.

“A teenager answered the door. He didn’t believe me at first,” Francis said.

“I heard our mailman, Tait, yell, ‘Your house is on fire,'” James recalled. “I thought it was my son’s friends and I said, ‘OK, let me know how that goes.’ I really did. And I didn’t move a muscle.”

James and her family didn’t hear it, smell it or see it. The fire had started in the attic.

It wasn’t until Francis insisted he show them the flames — the fire was no joke.

“I looked over my shoulder just at that moment, and flames were coming out of the ceiling.”

James had to get her 18-year-old son out of the basement. Firefighters tried to grab what they could.

Much of the home, though, was destroyed and has to be rebuilt.

But a life? Irreplaceable.

James said, “I can never repay Tait that my babies are safe. I can’t ever thank him enough.”