Mr. Washington and the whole company in amazement hung upon the old woman's words as she continued: "It was dis way: Dat little puppy dog when she growed up had some little puppies herself. One day one o' my fren's come by an' as' me for one o' dem puppies. I tol' him 'No,' I would not gib him dat puppy, but dat he had a little pig an' I would 'change a puppy for a pig. I had heard you tell ober heah so much 'bout hogs an' pigs dat I thought dis was a good chance to get started. He give me de pig an' I give him de puppy. In de course o' time dat little pig dun bring me in some mo' pigs. I sol' some an' kep' some. I had to feed de pig, so I had begun savin'. I den begun to find out dat I could git on wid less den I had ben gettin' on wid, an' so I kep' on savin' an' kep' on raisin' pigs 'til I was able to supply most o' my neighbors wid pigs, an' den I got me a cow, an den I begun to supply my neighbors wid milk, an' den I started me a little garden. Den I sol' my neighbors greens an' onions, an' so I went on fum time to time 'til I dun paid for de lot an' de house in which I lib, an' I keeps my pigs about me an' keeps my garden goin', an' dat's why I says all I is I owes to dat little puppy dog an' to dis heah conference." At these conferences the most elementary subjects are discussed. Booker Washington would tell and have told to these farmers matters which one would naturally assume any farmers, however ignorant, must already know. He never tried to deceive himself as to the woful ignorance of the Negro masses, and still he was never discouraged, but always said ignorance was not a hopeless handicap because it could be overcome by education. While he frankly although sadly acknowledged the lamentable ignorance of the rank and file of his race, particularly those on the soil and dependent for education upon the short-term, ill-equipped, and poorly taught rural Negro school, he as stoutly denied and constantly disproved the assertion that these ignorant masses were not capable of profiting by education. He earnestly strove and signally succeeded in attracting to these great annual agricultural conferences the most pathetically ignorant of the Negro farmers as well as the leading scientific agriculturists of the race. But he always insisted that the meetings be conducted for the benefit of the ignorant and not in the interests of the learned.