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 for 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.