The Tea Squall

The annual spring Tea Squall is set for Saturday at Betsey Blizzard's house. Her pet buzzard flies all over Kentucky delivering the formal invitations for the not-so-formal event to Florinda Fury, Katy Goodgrit, Zipporina and Sally Ann Thunder Ann Whirlwind Crockett. The ladies arrive from various odd routes over land and sea and begin chatting about the terrible winter just past. ``Well,'' says Sally Ann Crockett, ``it was so cold that Davy and I didn't hear a thing we said to each other all winter. Our words froze as we spoke. When the weather warmed up, the words thawed out, and we had a lot of conversation to listen to.'' Folkloric exaggeration, eccentric tall tales and delightful peculiarities run on, and soon the repast begins. The catalogue of teas overflows: black tea, linden tea, mint tea, sassafras tea and raspberry-leaf tea. And there are 40 kinds of cornbread, all named, creating an irresistible music: hoecakes, ashcakes, johnnycakes, corn oysters, corn dodgers. It's a terrific squall of what's-to-eat at a rollicking spring tea in Kentucky, till at the end, ``they all went home, one way or another.'' This is a gem. Ages 5-9. (April)