[Gutenberg 24603] • The House of Toys

Henry Russell Miller (1880-1955) wrote The House of Toys in 1914. It is a fairy tale of sorts. The story begins... "This is not a fairy tale, although you will find some old friends here. There is, for example, a witch, a horrid old creature who tricks the best and wisest of us: Circumstance is one of her many names, and a horde of grisly goblins follow in her train. For crabbed beldame an aunt, who meant well but was rich and used to having her own way, will do fairly well. Good fairies there are, quite a number; you must decide for yourself which one is the best. But the tale has chiefly to do with a youth to whom the witch had made one gift; well knowing that one would not be enough. Together with a girl--a sunflower who did not thrive in the shade, as Jim Blaisdell has said--he undertook to build, among other things, a house of love wherein she should dwell and reign. But when it was built he met another girl, who was--say, an iris."