"I did n't make it up," Kirk said, at supper. "The Maestro did—or at least he said the Folk taught him one like it. I can't remember the thanking one he sang before the feast. And Ken, he says your name's good Anglo-Saxon, and means 'a defender of his kindred.'"
"It does, does it?" said Ken. "You'll get so magicked over there some time that we'll never see you again; or else you'll come back cast into a spell, and there'll be no peace living with you."
"No, I won't," Kirk said. "And I like it. It makes things more interesting."
"I should think so," said Ken—secretly, perhaps, a shade envious of the Maestro's ability.
As he looked up Applegate Farm that night, he stopped for a moment at the door to look at the misty stars and listen to the Wind in the orchard.
"'A defender of his kindred,'" he murmured. "H'm!"
Hardly anything is more annoying than a mysterious elder brother. That Ken was tinkering at the Flying Dutchman (as he had immediately called the power-boat, on account of
