pompeylou

Updated: May 25, 2025

Tamar had lost her other children in infancy, and so the pansy-faced little Pompeylou of her mid-life was a great joy to her, and most of her leisure was devoted to the making of the pink calico slips that went to the little one's adorning. On her first journey into the great world beyond the plantation, however, she was not arrayed in one of these.

Ruth McEnery Stuart - Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches

Another year passed over the plantation, and in the interval the always expected had happened to the house of Pompey the coachman. It was a tiny girl child, black of hue as both her doting parents, and endowed with the name of her sire, somewhat feminized for her fitting into the rather euphonious Pompeylou.

Ruth McEnery Stuart - Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches

The obsequies in her memory had been fixed for an earlier date, but in deference to the too-recent arrival of her "nearest of kin" was then too young to attend, they had been deferred by Tamar's request, and it is safe to say that no child was ever brought forward with more pride at any family gathering than was the tiny Miss Pompeylou when she was carried up the aisle "to hear her step-mammy's funeral preached."

Ruth McEnery Stuart - Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches