“It has a lofty sound,” blandly remarked Isham; “will the chairman be good enough to translate it for us? In other words, what does ‘E Pluribus Unum’ mean?”
“Why,” replied the chairman with scorn in his manner; “everybody oughter know it means, ‘Hurrah for the red, white and blue.’”
“Thank you,” returned Isham, puffing at his pipe.
Vose Adams, the second committeeman, felt it his duty to explain his position.
“The trouble with that outlandish name is in the fust place that it has three words and consequently it’s too much to manage. Whoever heard of a town with three handles to its name? Then it’s foreign. When I was in college (several disrespectful sniffs which caused the speaker to stop and glare around in quest of the offenders); I say when I was in college and studying Greek and Chinese and Russian, I larned that that name was made up of all three of them languages. I b’leve in America for the Americans, and if we can’t find a name that’s in the American language, why let’s wait till we can.”
This sentiment was delivered with such dramatic force that several of the miners nodded their heads in approval. It was an appeal to the patriotic side of their nature––which was quick to respond.
“Mr. Chairman,” said Budge Isham, addressing the 5 landlord, who, by general consent, was the presiding officer at these disputations, and who like the others failed to see the quiet amusement the educated man was extracting, “if it is agreeable to Mr. Adams, to whose eloquent speech we have listened with much edification, I would like him to give us his reasons for calling our handsome town ‘Murderers’ Hollow.’”
The gentleman appealed to rose to his feet. Turning toward the man who had called upon him, he gave him a look which ought to have made him sink to the floor with mortification, preliminary to saying with polished irony:
“If the gentleman had paid attention as he oughter, he would have obsarved that I said ‘Murderer’s Holler,’ not ‘Murderers’ Hollow.’ I would advise him not to forget that he ain’t the only man in this place that has received a college eddycation. Now as to the name: it proclaims our stern virtue and love for law.”
The orator paused, but the wondering expression of the bronzed faces turned toward him showed that he would have to descend to particulars.