Before the end of the summer months Caspar was settled in Bridgeton, and as busily engaged in shoeing horses and mending disabled wheels as he had ever been at his forge in Nonnenwald. He found, indeed, that he had a good deal to learn of American ways and customs, but in return he was able to give some valuable hints to his employer. He found that he was not so strong as he had been, and that the sledge-hammer was rather heavy. He cast about for some lighter work, and, discovering a good lathe which was disused because its former owner had been killed in the army, he bought it, put it in order, and proposed to his friend and employer that they should set up the business of making and repairing spinning-wheels, reels, and so forth. The venture was prosperous. He found his hands full of work, and seemed likely to become rich enough before long to purchase the place which he had already in his eye. He had only one serious trouble, and it was a very great one: he had never heard a word from his family. He had written again and again, and Captain Elmer had given his letters to some of his friends among the French officers, on the chance of their going through France, but all in vain. Not a word came in reply. There was no such thing possible as going home. All that could be done was to wait with what patience and fortitude he could muster for that "end of the war" which every one prophesied, and which seemed every year to be farther off than ever. He was not without his comforts by the way, as who is who walks through the wilderness of this world with his eyes fixed on the Zion to which he has set his face? It was a comfort to conquer the good-will of his neighbours, who, it must be confessed, were at first much disposed to treat him as a suspicious character, if not as a downright enemy. It was a comfort to make the first payment on the little wooden house with its tall upper story and picturesque cool "summer kitchen," characteristic of West Jersey houses, and to go over the same and plan out little additions to its beauty and convenience—to plant grapevines and currant-bushes and rose trees and yellow honeysuckles to fill the air with fragrance; to make a neat fence and plant a row of linden trees before the door, and to whitewash everything with snowy shell-lime in true West Jersey fashion.