THE ROSE-QUARTZ SPRING
Throughout that entire season the old Squire was much interested in a
project for making a fortune from the sale of spring water. The water of
the celebrated Poland Spring, twenty miles from our place--where the
Poland Spring Hotel now stands--was already enjoying an enviable
popularity; and up in our north pasture on the side of Nubble Hill,
there was, and still is, a fine spring, the water of which did not
differ in analysis from that of the Poland Spring. It is the "boiling"
type of spring, and the water, which is stone-cold, bubbles up through
white quartzose sand at the foot of a low granite ledge. It flows
throughout the year at the rate of about eight gallons a minute.
It had always been called the Nubble Spring, but when the old Squire and
Addison made their plans for selling the spring water they rechristened
it the Rose-Quartz Spring on account of an outcrop of rose quartz in the
ledges near by.
They had the water analyzed by a chemist in Boston, who pronounced it as
pure as Poland water, and, indeed, so like it that he could detect no
difference. All of us were soon enthusiastic about the project.
First we set to work to make the spring more attractive. We cleared up
the site and formed a granite basin for the water, sheltered by a little
kiosk with seats where visitors could sit as they drank. We also cleared
up the slope round it and set out borders of young pine and
balm-of-Gilead trees.
We sent samples of the water in bottles and kegs to dealers in spring
waters, along with a descriptive circular--which Addison composed--and
the statement of analysis. Addison embellished the circular with several
pictures of the spring and its surroundings, and cited medical opinions
on the value of pure waters of this class. We also invited our neighbors
and fellow townsmen to come and drink at our spring.
Very soon orders began to come in. The name itself, the Rose-Quartz
Spring, was fortunate, for it conveyed a suggestion of crystal purity;
that with the analysis induced numbers of people in the great cities,
especially in Chicago, to try it.
Less was known in 1868 than now of the precautions that it is necessary
to take in sending spring water to distant places, in order to insure
its keeping pure. Little was known of microbes or antisepsis.
The old Squire and Addison decided that they would have to send the
water to their customers in kegs of various sizes and in barrels; but as
kegs made of oak staves, or of spruce, would impart a woody taste to the
water, they hit upon the expedient of making the staves of sugar-maple
wood. The old Squire had a great quantity of staves sawed at his
hardwood flooring mill, and at the cooper shop had them made into kegs
and barrels of all sizes from five gallons' capacity up to fifty
gallons'. After the kegs were set up we filled them with water and
allowed them to soak for a week to take out all taste of the wood before
we filled them from the spring and sent them away.
We believed that that precaution was sufficient, but now it is known
that spring water can be kept safe only by putting it in glass bottles
and glass carboys. No water will keep sweet in barrels for any great
length of time, particularly when exported to hot climates.
The spring was nearly a mile from the farmhouse; and at a little
distance below it we built a shed and set up a large kettle for boiling
water to scald out the kegs and barrels that came back from customers
and dealers to be refilled. We were careful not only to rinse them but
also to soak them before we cleaned them with scalding 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, 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 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. 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 asking for a continued trial of it. I suppose that people
at a distance thought that if there had been carelessness once there
might be again. Very likely, too, they suspected that the water had
never been so pure as we had declared it to be. Owners of other springs
who had put water on the market improved the opportunity to circulate
reports that Rose-Quartz water would not "keep." We got possession of
three circulars in which that damaging statement had been sent
broadcast.
There is probably no commodity in the world that depends so much on a
reputation for purity as spring water. By September the orders for water
had fallen off to a most disheartening extent. Scarcely three hundred
gallons were called for.
In the hope that this was merely a temporary set-back, and knowing that
there was no fault in the water itself, the old Squire spent a thousand
dollars in advertisements to stem the tide of adverse criticism. So far
as we could discover, the effort produced little or no effect on sales.
The opinion had gone abroad that the water would not keep pure for any
great length of time. By the following spring sales had dwindled to such
an extent that it was hardly worth while to continue the business.
Considered as a commercial asset, the Rose-Quartz Spring was dead.
Regretfully we gave up the enterprise and let the spring fall into
disuse. It was then, I remember, that the old Squire said, "It takes us
one lifetime to learn how to do things."