A peasant woman in France gets but about three or four cents a day for her labor, and with this she can buy but few things to live upon. She usually goes barefoot, or wears heavy wooden shoes. She seldom eats meat, and often has no other breakfast than a glass of water and a few cherries, or grapes, or perhaps an apple. This is indeed poor fare. In travelling in France, you will often see women in the fields taking care of the cows, and I have seen a woman spend the whole day in attending a single cow, which was grazing along the road-side. But while the woman watched the cow, she spun a little twine out of flax, by means of a stick, which she kept twirling between her fingers. There are few countries in which the people, at large, are so happy as in our own country. The rich people fare very well in all countries, but the poor people are not happy in England, or France, or Germany, or any other country than ours. Should we not be thankful that a good Providence has cast our lot in America? [Illustration] The Moose. Here is a picture of a moose, a huge animal of the deer kind, which is found in the state of Maine, and in Canada. It is sometimes six and even seven feet high, to the top of his shoulders; and the points of his immense horns, when he holds up his head, are ten feet from the ground. There is something very queer about the appearance of the moose. His body is short, his legs are long, his neck is thick, his countenance is dull, his mouth is large, his nostrils wide. His whole aspect is stupid――and yet he wears upon his head a pair of spreading horns or antlers, of the most fantastic shape. They are branched like some kinds of seaweed, or like coral, that grows in the bottom of the sea. It really seems, at first sight, as if nature intended a joke, when she contrived the moose――for he reminds us of a very stupid-looking person, bedizzened with an enormous head-dress. But we must not go too much by looks――for the moose, however he may appear as we see him in the picture, is a very fleet animal, and if you see him in his native woods, with the Indians or the hounds at his heels, he will show you that he is a pretty smart fellow, after all. The moose sheds his horns every year, and it is not uncommon to find them in the woods of Maine. Sometimes the creature gets his horns so entangled in the branches of the trees, that he cannot get away, and he then dies, or is caught by the hunters. The Indians of Maine hunt the moose in winter: when the snow is deep, he cannot travel very fast, for his feet sink in the snow, and he is soon run down. The flesh of the moose is often brought to the Boston market. There is an animal in the north of Europe, called the Elk, which is very like the moose, but it is believed, by learned men, not to be exactly the same kind of creature. Inquisitive Jack. CHAPTER VII.