"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 such a quantity? Father lets me jump on it 'cause I don't hurt the hay—very much."
No. Joy couldn't possibly climb up the ladder. Well, Gypsy would help her then. By a little maneuvering she persuaded Joy to step up three rounds, and she herself stood behind her and began to walk up. Joy screamed and stood still.
"Go ahead—you can't stop now. I'll keep hold of you," said Gypsy, choking with laughter, and walking on. There was nothing for Joy to do but climb, unless she chose to be walked over, so up they went, she screaming and Gypsy pushing all the way.
"Now all you have to do is just to get up on the beams and jump off," said Gypsy, up there, and peering down from among the cobwebs, and flying through the air, almost before the words were off from her lips. But Joy wouldn't hear of getting into such a dusty place. She took two or three dainty little rolls on the hay, but the dried clover got into her hair and mouth and eyes, and she was perfectly sure there was a spider down her neck; so Gypsy was glad at last to get her safely down the ladder and out doors.
After that they tried the raft. Gypsy's raft was on a swamp below the orchard, and it was one of her favorite amusements to push herself about over the shallow water. But Joy was afraid of wetting her feet, or getting drowned, or something—she didn't exactly know what, so they gave that up.