Branch Come Home Year

August 9-19, 2007

Dreams of Branch

By: Mrs. Agnes (Mooney) Singleton

Submitted By: Marina (Power) Gambin

 

 

I had a lovely dream last night, a dream about my old home village and mother. The time was lamplight on a lovely summer evening. My darling mother was closing all the dampers of the Waterloo stove, turning off the lamp to a glimmer. The place was full of dancing, but peaceful, homey shadows. I was there, a little child of maybe ten or eleven. I knew we were going down to the Bank to watch the skiffs coming in . . .

 

The skiffs were some thirty or forty, long two-masted boats with their two-men crews, poling in the Gut, over the Bar at high tide, the only time they could come over the Bar. The skiffs must wait outside the Bar until the tide rises and at times a little sea begins to rise. The skiffs must therefore hurry, fearing the sea may become rough. Sometimes when this happens, the ones who hurry get stranded on the Bar and often two or three may pile up and smash against each other with the force of the incoming waves.

 

But, back to my dream. I hopped along clutching mother’s full skirts as she locked the door and dropped the key in her pocket. In a few minutes, we were on the Bank, where nine or ten women were sitting in the pleasant dusk. The western sky was aglow with the last halo from the setting sun and in the rosy glow thousands of little dusty millers drifted to and fro. A host of little ones like me ran about trying to catch them.

 

“The above composition was probably written in the 1950s. It shows just how much Aunt Aggie missed Branch. It also shows that she had a flare for writing.”—Marina (Power) Gambin