This mostly lively musical portrait of a Norman Rockwell-type slice of American life is partly based on a march that Ives wrote at the age of nineteen. There exist two versions of the work: the original, for voice (or chorus) and piano, and a fabulous version for chorus and orchestra by George F. Roberts made circa 1935. The music, included in Ives' famous self-published volume of 114 songs, alternates between a depiction of a circus march with "horses prancing ... helmets gleaming" and a nostalgic flashback asking where are they all now. Although the music is primarily tonal within its two-minute-and-fifty-second duration, there are many wonderfully unexpected rhythmic turnarounds and syncopations, with lively rushing chromatic lines in every register.

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