"I then told him that he had no authority to charge
me with prevarication, and that if he believed that
I had not fastened down the tent wall, the only thing
he could do was to report me. I went back to the tent
and found that either Cadet Tyler or some other cadet
had unfastened the tent wall, so I fastened it down
again. Nothing now was said to me by Cadet Tyler, and
I went back to where my friends were: but we had been
sitting there only about a half hour, when a private
soldier came to us and said, 'It is near time for
parade, and you will have to go away from here.' I
never was more surprised in my life, and I asked the
soldier what he meant, for I surely thought be was
either drunk or crazy, but he said that the
superintendent had given him orders to allow no
colored persons near the visitors' seats during parade.
"I asked him if he recognized me as a cadet. He said
he did. I then told him that those were my friends;
that I had invited them there to see the parade, and
that they were going to stay. He said he had nothing
to do with me, of course, but that he had to obey the
orders of the superintendent. I then went to the officer
of the guard, who was standing near by, and stated the
circumstances to him, requesting him to protect us from
such insults. He spoke to the soldier, saying that he
had best not try to enforce that order, as the order was
intended to apply to servants, and then the soldier went
off and left us.
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