Hough, Emerson: The Girl at the Halfway House. V1. 18 July 2010
 

Hough, Emerson, 1857-1923
Hough was born in Newton, Iowa on June 28,1857. He was in the town high school's first graduating class of three in 1875. He graduated from the University of Iowa with a bachelor's degree in philosophy in 1880 and later studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1882. His first article, "Far From The Madding Crowd," was published in Forest and Stream in 1882

Excerpt
The band major was a poet. His name is lost to history, but it deserves a place among the titles of the great. Only in the soul of a poet, a great man, could there have been conceived that thought by which the music of triumph should pass the little pinnacle of human exultation, and reach the higher plane of human sympathy.