Though the last of Ives' violin sonatas to be completed, "Children's Day at a Camp Meeting" was the first to be published (1915). For the revised edition of 1942, Ives removed the fourth movement, which he had appropriated—typically, without explanation or apology—for the Sonata No. 2. Not only does the sonata's descriptive subtitle provide some suggestion as to Ives' source of inspiration, but the composer himself also provided a detailed narrative to accompany the music. The first movement, a lackadaisical march, recalls the famous stories of how Ives' father, George, sharpened his children's musical ears by having them sing a tune simultaneously in different keys. The movement itself portrays Ives and his boyhood companions marching about and deliberately singing off-key; tunes like "Tell Me the Old, Old Story" and "Work, for the Night is Coming" well up among remembrances of the young Ives practicing one of his father's organ fugues. The outer Adagio sections of the second movement, both based on "Jesus Loves Me," frame a raucous middle section which recalls the point during the religious service at which restless boys were excused to "throw stones down on the rocks in the brook!" Appropriately, and with the composer's characteristic humor, this section is marked Allegro (conslugarocko). The final movement recalls the march-like feel of the first with its evocations of Shall We Gather at the River? This hymn appears prominently elsewhere in the composer's music, including in the Symphony No. 4 (1909-1916) and the powerful vocal setting At the River (1916).

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