The circumstances surrounding the composition of Walter's poem "The Piper", as well as the poem's message, its almost instant recognition as a classic, and the tragic wartime demise of its author, is very similar to the story of the real-life poem "In Flanders Fields" by Canadian John McCrae.Though never fully written out in "Rilla of Ingleside", "The Piper" is implied to mimic "In Flanders Fields" in content and form.