ing water. As the
business of sending off the water grew, the old Squire kept a hired man
at the spring and the shed to look after the kegs and to draw the water.
His name was James Doane. He had been with the old Squire six years and
as a rule was a trustworthy man and a good worker. He had one failing:
occasionally, although not very often, he would get drunk.

So firm was the old Squire's faith in the water that we drew a supply of
it to the house every second morning. Addison fitted up a little "water
room" in the farmhouse L, and we kept water there in large bottles,
cooled, for drinking. The water seemed to do us good, for we were all
unusually healthy that summer. "Here's the true elixir of health," the
old Squire often said as he drew a glass of it and sat down in the
pleasant, cool "water room" to enjoy it.

Addison and he had fixed the price of the water at twenty-five cents a
gallon, although we made our neighbors and fellow townsmen welcome to
all they cared to come and get. We first advertised the water in June,
and sales increased slowly throughout the summer and fall. Apparently
the water gave good satisfaction, for the kegs came back to be refilled.
By the following May the success of the venture seemed assured. Those
who were using the water spoke well of it, and the demand was growing.
In April we received orders for more than nine hundred gallons, and in
May for more than thirteen hundred gallons.

The old Squire was very happy over the success of the enterprise. "It's
a fine, clean business," he said. "That water has done us good, and it
will do others good; and if they drink that, they will drink less
whiskey."

Addison spent the evenings in making out bills and attending to the
correspondence; for there were other matters that had to be attended to
besides the Rose-Quartz Spring. Besides the farm work we had to look
after the hardwood flooring mill that summer and the white-birch dowel
mill. For several days toward the end of June we did not even have time
to go up to the spring for our usual supply of water. But we kept Jim
Doane there under instructions to attend carefully to the putting up of
the water. It was his sole business, and he seemed to be attending to it
properly. He was at the spring every day and boarded at the house of a
neighbor, named Murch, who lived nearer to Nubble Hill than we did.
Every day, too, we noticed the smoke of the fire under the kettle in
which he heated water f