MRS. APPLEYARD AND I

I wish I could tell me and Mrs. Appleyard apart,"" says her creator-alias wistfully at the close of this pleasant memoir. Mrs. Kent enjoyed a Boston childhood with the customary extensions to Maine and Cape Cod, has a genealogical tree that dates back to the Mayflower on her mother's side, a Cunarder on her father's. She was courted the proverbial seven years by editor Ira Rich Kent, who wooed her with encyclopedias and violets, then accepted her proposal. With the children came writing inspiration: ""Read me our story please and tell me what will happen tomorrow!"" Down the years with Mrs. Kent--the move to Vermont, the conjunction of her daughter Posy's marriage and bifocals, the discovery on her husband's retirement that he never liked mackerel, the emergence of Mrs. Appleyard from her kitchen. . . . Agreeable.