I go to a camp with children with all forms of Juvinile Arthritis (I have Dermatomyositis) and we sang it on the last night. We could all relate to it. What they told us was that it was written by an extremely sick little girl that could not go out or be a child. She wrote that song one night as she was looking out her window at all the barges. When she died her family passed it on through different charities and eventually the Girl Scouts. I have heared many other "histories" of it but I believe this one to be true, because the camp director, had a name for the little girl who wrote it, if I remember corectly. Next year I will be sure to write it down! Here is a link: http://www.nightheron.com/trees_activityguidebarges.html (By the way, I am refering to the version with the barges, not the counselor/scout/leaders etc)