or scalding out the casks.

The first hint we had that things were going wrong was when Willis Murch
told Addison that Doane had been on a spree, and that for several days
he had been so badly under the influence of liquor that he did not know
what he was about.

On hearing that news Addison and the old Squire hastened to the spring.
Jim was there, sober enough now, and working industriously. But he
looked bad, and his account of how he had done his work for the last
week was far from clear. The old Squire gave him another job at the
dowel mill and stationed his brother, Asa Doane, a strictly temperate
man, at the spring. We could not learn just what had happened during the
past ten days, but we hoped that no serious neglect had occurred.

But there had.

Toward the middle of July a letter of complaint came--the first we had
ever received. "This barrel of water from your spring is not keeping
good," were the exact words of it. I remember them well, for we read
them over and over again. Addison replied at once, and sent another
barrel in its place.

Before another week had passed a second complaint came. "This last
barrel of water from your spring is turning 'ropy,'" it said. Another
customer sent his barrel back when half full, with a letter saying, "It
isn't fit to drink. The barrel is slimy inside."

Addison examined the barrel carefully, and found that there was, indeed,
an appreciable film of vegetable growth on the staves inside. The taste
of the water also was quite different.

Within a fortnight four more barrels and kegs were returned to us, in at
least two cases accompanied by sharp words of condemnation. "No better
than pond water," one customer wrote.

We carefully examined the inside of all these barrels and kegs as soon
as they came back. Besides invisible impurities in the water, there was
in every one more or less visible dirt, even bits of grass and slivers
of wood.

There was only one conclusion to reach: Jim Doane had not been careful
in filling the kegs and had not properly cleansed and scalded them. As
nearly as we could discover from bits of information that came out
subsequently, there were days and days when he was too "hazy" to know
whether he had cleansed the barrels or not. He had filled them and sent
them off in foul condition.

Addison wrote more than fifty letters to customers, defending the purity
of Rose-Quartz Spring water, relating the facts of this recent
"accident" and ask