VIDALIA — The mark of a good gift to a child is one that keeps their interest time and time again.

For Mady Ainsworth, an inflatable water slide wasn’t just a good gift.

“It’s the best slide ever,” she said, during the fleeting moments in which she was not playing on it.

When The Dart landed on Advocate Row in Vidalia on Sunday, Mady and her cousin Gracie Stricklin, 6, were going nonstop on the inflatable water slide that Ainsworth’s parents rented for her ninth birthday party on Saturday.

“A one day birthday event has turned into three days,” said Joey Ainsworth, Mady’s father.

The Ainsworths rented the slide and set it up Friday morning at Mady’s great-grandparents Pat and Vaughn Crooks’ house.

“Once she got home from school, she played on it till dark,” Joey said.

On the next day, at Mady’s party, the slide was the main focus for the 13 girls in attendance.

“They must have played on it for seven and a half hours,” Vaughn said.

“They played on it so long, we had to feed those girls lunch and dinner,” Pat said.

The girls would climb up the inflatable stairs to reach the top of the slide, a daunting 20 or so feet off the ground.

But the girls were fearless. They would slide down every way possible.

Feet first, or head first, it didn’t matter. Once off the top of the slide, gravity would do its work and speed the screaming girls down it into kiddy sized pools with a splash.

Then, they would repeat.

“I don’t know where they find the energy,” Pat said. “But I love to see them all so happy.”

Joey was thinking much more economically about his daughter’s enjoyment.

“We paid for it,” he said. “And they sure are making it worthwhile.”