I called Lawrence and Pat to tell them about this new discovery. Pat put me on the telephone with Lawrence, who seemed to be doing better. I asked him why he thought none of the Haley kids ever learned the fiddle.

“I think Pop took interest in us as far as he knew how to take interest in us,” he said. “Whatever he could’ve taught us he most certainly would have. But we’d ruther be out running in the woods than sitting at a table trying to learn ‘Forks of Sandy’ or something like that. He would ruther teach it to the ones who could and who showed interest in it, and let it go at that. Pop never did try to get me to learn the fiddle because I was left-handed. I guess he figured that would be too much of a challenge for him even, to try to teach violin to a left-handed violin player.”

I told Lawrence he knew more about the fiddle than a lot of professional musicians and he said, “Well, I guess I learned just about as much of it as he did. I appreciate any good words that can be said about me and the violin. My sister’s here and if you could get her interested, she might be able to tell you as much about it as I can. She took more interest in the music of our mother, I know that. But she could pick up the fiddle and play the fiddle and play the mandolin and the piano and other instruments.”

Lawrence said, “Now if you want to talk to my sister a minute, maybe she can tell you something. If she can’t, I don’t know who else to tell you. She could probably tell you as much about it as any of us.”