When he took her to the attic at Ingleside and showed her the museum of curios that Captain Jim Boyd had bequeathed to him she was immensely pleased and flattered . She also won Carl 's heart entirely by her interest in his beetles and ants . It could not be denied that Mary got on rather better with the boys than with the girls . She quarrelled bitterly with Nan Blythe the second day . `` Your mother is a witch , '' she told Nan scornfully . `` Red-haired women are always witches . '' Then she and Faith fell out about the rooster . Mary said its tail was too short . Faith angrily retorted that she guessed God know what length to make a rooster 's tail . They did not `` speak '' for a day over this . Mary treated Una 's hairless , one-eyed doll with consideration ; but when Una showed her other prized treasure -- a picture of an angel carrying a baby , presumably to heaven , Mary declared that it looked too much like a ghost for her . Una crept away to her room and cried over this , but Mary hunted her out , hugged her repentantly and implored forgiveness . No one could keep up a quarrel long with Mary -- not even Nan , who was rather prone to hold grudges and never quite forgave the insult to her mother . Mary was jolly . She could and did tell the most thrilling ghost stories . Rainbow Valley seances were undeniably more exciting after Mary came . She learned to play on the jew 's - harp and soon eclipsed Jerry . `` Never struck anything yet I could n't do if I put my mind to it , '' she declared . Mary seldom lost a chance of tooting her own horn . She taught them how to make `` blow-bags '' out of the thick leaves of the `` live-forever '' that flourished in the old Bailey garden , she initiated them into the toothsome qualities of the `` sours '' that grew in the niches of the graveyard dyke , and she could make the most wonderful shadow pictures on the walls with her long , flexible fingers .
And when they all went picking gum in Rainbow Valley Mary always got `` the biggest chew '' and bragged XXXXX it .
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