Sophie’s World Read Free

driven by a man wearing white stockings, a coat with tails, and a three-cornered hat. Sophie closed her eyes and listened to the clip-clop of the horses’ hooves.
    Antoinette LaCroix peeked from inside the carriage, her face half hidden by the hood of her cloak. All around her colonists hurried to and fro, calling to each other in English. She could understand them, but how she longed to hear her native French.
    “Hey!”
    Something smacked Sophie on the top of the head. She blinked at Maggie, who was holding her map rolled up like a billy club.
    “Come on,” Maggie said. “You’re supposed to stay with the group.” She dragged Sophie forward by the wrist to where the group stood on tiptoes at a cemetery wall.
    “This is Bruton Parish Church!” Vic said. “We’ll visit here on our way back too!”
    “Will we get to look at the graves?” Maggie said.
    “Gross!” B.J. said. “Who wants to look at dead people?”
    “Tombstones here date back to the 1600s!” Vic said, walking backward and beckoning the group with both hands. Sophie felt a delighted shiver.
    Next they stopped in front of the courthouse. A man in a sweeping waistcoat and white silk stockings emerged through the tall wooden doors and shouted, “Nathaniel Buttonwick! Appear before the judge, or you will forfeit your recognizance!”
    “What?” B.J. and Kitty said together.
    Sophie didn’t have any idea what recognizance meant either, but she loved the sound of it. Outside the courthouse two guards pushed a man’s head through a hole in a wooden contraption and lowered a wooden railing over the man’s wrists.
    “In the stocks till sundown!” one guard shouted.
    “He has to stand there until dark?” Sophie said.
    “It’s not real,” Maggie said.
    Antoinette was appalled. She had never seen such treatment, not in the gentle place from whence she came. Had it been a mistake to come to the colonies? But Antoinette shook her head until her tresses tossed against her face. She must find her mission.
    Sophie wished she had a costume—like that little girl she saw across the street pushing a rolling hoop with a stick. She had on a white puffy cap and an apron-covered dress down to her ankles and white stockings that Sophie longed to feel on her own legs. A boy chased after her, trying to knock over her hoop.
    I guess boys have always been annoying , Sophie thought. She caught up with Vic in time to hear that the powder magazine—an eight-sided brick building with a roof like a pointy hat—had once stored the cannons and guns and ammunition of Colonial Williamsburg’s small army.
    Sophie wanted to skip as they passed through an opening in the fence. A man with a big barrel chest suddenly blocked their path and bellowed, “Halt!”
    “What?” B.J. and Kitty said.
    “It’s not real,” Maggie said again, although she looked up at the giant of a man with reluctant respect in her eyes.
    The man’s tan shirt was the size of a pup tent, and the white scarf tied around his massive head framed a snarling face. Sophie swallowed hard.
    “Fall in!” he shouted.
    Colton fell to the ground, sending Eddie into a fit of boy-howls.
    “That means fall into a straight line!”
    The rest of them scrambled into place. The big man picked Colton up by his backpack and set him down on his feet next to Sophie.
    “Hey, dude!” Colton said.
    “You will call me Sergeant! Let me hear it!”
    “Yes, Sergeant!” Sophie cried out.
    Eddie went into convulsions of laughter. Colton said, “Yes, Sergeant,” in a mousy voice.
    “You—and you—fall out!” the sergeant roared.
    Eddie and Colton were banished to a blue wagon full of long poles, where the sergeant told them to stay until further notice. When Chaperone Mom started to march over to them, the sergeant yelled, “You! Fall in!”
    “Oh, no, I’m the chaperone!” she said.
    “We need every able-bodied individual! We are no longer a small militia—we are part of the Colonial Army! If Lafayette and