warm brown complexion. She was barely thirteen years old and soon to have a child. She had no husband. Tata in his clumsy manner asked her to marry him. He would care for her and the coming baby. So they were married. The baby girl was soon running about the compound. She was like a fairy - small-boned, dainty, unspoiled. Lila and Fairy, Betty, Jimmie and Larry were all watching the sinister, black hairy tarantula clinging to the middle post of the carpenter’s shop. Tarantulas live in the holes of an old stump or in the thatch roof of a house and depend upon fleetness of foot to catch their prey. Tata put the cotton on a stick, poured on alcohol, lit it, and quickly touched the great spider whose long black hair caught fire as he streaked up the post. Nobody noticed that wee Fairy had quietly picked up the bottle of alcohol from the ground, and stooping over the stick with the smoldering cotton on the end, began to pour it. There was just a sudden flash of fire. The flames leaped, and Fairy was enveloped in them. The child’s mother reached her first and beat out the flames with her hands, scorching herself in the act. Millie, hearing the screams, ran outside, too. The child’s face, hair, and eyebrows were terribly burned. The flesh of one ear seemed to be hanging and one side of the body was burned. But worst of all were the little hands that had held the bottle. The flesh hung from the fingers.
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