in view.  Above the screen-door frame was a hiatus of space running up into the peak.  The carpenter had thoughtfully run two strips up to the roof and this enabled us to fill in by cutting and turning in the cloth.  A corresponding space above the window received similar treatment.  Then we covered the inner surface of the screen door and we had a room.

But we were far from satisfied.  The room looked bare and crude.  We bought a can of dark-oak stain and gave the floor a coat and this improved matters so much that we stained the wood visible on the door frame and about the window.  Having finished this, we saw the need of doing something for the ceiling.  The ceiling was merely the inner surface of the roof.  The builders had made it of boards of varying sizes, the rafters were rough and splintery and there were myriads of nails sticking through everywhere.  It looked a hopeless task.  But we bought more stain and went to work.  Before beginning we covered our precious blue walls with newspapers, donned our oldest clothes and spread papers well over the floor.  It was well that we did.  The staining was not difficult work but the nails made it splashy and we were pretty well spotted when we finished.

But when we did finish we felt compensated.  The nails had become invisible.  The dull blue walls with their bright brass trimming, the soft brown floor and the stained, raftered roof made the room the most attractive in the house.  We could not rest, although the hour was late and we were both tired, until we had furnished it.  We put in a couple of small rugs, a brass bed, and a white bureau.  We hung two pictures securely upon the uprights of the skeleton.  We added a couple of chairs and a rack for clothing, put up a white madras curtain at the window, and regarded the effect with the utmost satisfaction.  The room answered the purpose exactly.  The burlap was thick enough to act as a screen.  It was possible to see movement through it, but not form.  It insured privacy and still permitted the air to pass through for ventilation.  As a finishing touch we screwed a knob on the outside of the door, put a brass hook on the inside and went downstairs to count the cost.

As a quick and inexpensive method of adding to the number of rooms in one’s house, the making of a burlap room is without an equal.  The idea is not patented, and we who deem ourselves its creators, are only too happy to send it on, in the hope that it may be of service to some other puzzled householder who is wondering where to put an added family member.

THE CONFESSION STORY.  Closely akin to the personal experience article is the so-called “confession story.”  Usually published anonymously, confession stories may reveal more personal and intimate experiences than a writer would ordinarily care to give in a signed article.  Needless to say, most readers are keenly interested in such revelations, even though they are made anonymously.  Like personal experience stories, they are told in the first person with a liberal use of the pronoun “I.”