"I shall tan my hands," said Joy, reluctantly, as they went out.
"Besides, I don't know what a jiff is."

"A jiff is—why, it's short for jiffy, I suppose."

"But what's a jiffy?" persisted Joy.

"Couldn't tell you," said Gypsy, with a bubbling laugh; "I guess it's
something that's in a terrible hurry. Tom says it ever so much."

"I shouldn't think your mother would let you use boys' talk," said Joy.
Gypsy sometimes stood in need of some such hint as this, but she did not
relish it from Joy. By way of reply she climbed up the post of the
clothesline.

Joy thought the chickens were pretty, but they had such long legs, and
such a silly way of squealing when you took them up, as if you were
going to murder them. Besides she was afraid she should step on them. So
they went into the barn, and Gypsy exhibited Billy and Bess and Clover
with the talent of a Barnum and the pride of a queen. Billy was the old
horse who had pulled the family to church through the sand every Sunday
since the children were babies, and Bess and Clover were white-starred,
gentle-eyed cows, who let Gypsy pull their horns and tickle them with
hay, and make pencil-marks on their white foreheads to her heart's
content, and looked at Joy's strange face with great musing beautiful
brown eyes. But Joy was afraid they would hook her, and she didn't like
to be in a barn.

"What! not tumble on the hay!" cried Gypsy, half way up the ladder into
the loft. "Just see what a quantity there is of it. Did you ever know