Masie learned to sew when she was only four years old. The new baby was coming soon, and Mama's lap kept shrinking. "It's not because I don't love you, Masie Jane. It just means I can't hug you as tight."

Every night after supper, while Mama knitted socks, Masie sat beside her with a collection of bits of fabric, a needle and some thread. Piece by piece, she stitched shapes together any way that she saw fit. It wasn't a very good doll that she made, hardly recognizable at all, but that didn't matter to Masie Jane. His name was Maxwell, and she wanted something to hold.

Mama assumed it was a phase, something that Masie would outgrow, but Masie surprised Mama and everyone else too. While her friends played hopscotch and Ring Around the Rosie, Masie sat and stitched.

She made Maxwell a blanket, many colors, and fixed him up a bit. She gave him blue-button eyes and a tiny stitched mouth, a single dark curl and fingers on his hands. She made a teddy bear next, with one flower-button eye. He wasn't perfect, with one leg shorter than the other, but he was soft and he charmed Mama. That made Masie smile.

When her brother came -- baby Richard -- Masie made him a toy, too. It was partly for hugging and partly for chewing, a patchwork dog with a curly tail. Richard took to it happily, and would cry and fuss if it was left behind. Mama and her friends marveled over how much little Masie could do.

By the time Masie turned eight, she'd filled her room with dolls. There were babies and horses and teddy bears piled three deep. Her cousins and friends all had toys that Masie made. They were high on Christmas and birthday lists, once the others got a look at what she could do. Grandma, Mama's mother, bought Masie a sewing machine, and taught her to make seams and pleats much faster. Now there were clothes for the bears and dresses for the dolls. Mama talked about the State Fair.

Maxwell was a boy now, in a pair of green overalls. He had a few more stitched-on curls and a plaid patch on his cheek where the fabric had worn through. He had the place of honor on Masie's bed, though. She put him to rest on her pillows once she'd gotten up for the day.

Blue ribbons were easy to come by. Friends were much harder to keep. No one wanted to come over after school and cut old clothing into squares. Weekends were for going out with their families to parks and fairs and sometimes movies. Roller skating, swimming pools, Masie wasn't interested in that.

So no one came to Masie's tenth birthday party, even though she'd made presents for all her 'friends'. Masie didn't shed a tear. Mama and Richard had cake and ice cream with her, and Masie kept the dolls.

They became Masie's new friends.

Until Maxwell got jealous.

It was tea parties and sleepovers, first. But the tea was always weak, and the teacups chipped or broke. The cookies burned and the milk went sour, but Masie plowed ahead. She gave the other dolls names. She gave them birthdays and made Christmas sweaters. She patched skinned knees and nursed them through springtime colds with genuine, loving care. If the sweaters unraveled and the patches peeled off, Masie put them back, time and time again.

And when her friends started telling her secrets, Masie never said a word.

It was Maxwell who complained.

"You shouldn't listen to them," he said. "They'll only tell you lies."

"That's not true, and you shouldn't say it." Masie believed in goodness by default.

The summer before high school started was the summer that everything changed.

While the other girls Masie's age were discovering make-up, boys and high heels, Masie was sewing in her room. Maxwell had been a boy for far too long, he said. It was time for him to grow, and only Masie could help with that. So while Richard went off to play youth football, and Mama canned tomatoes, Masie gathered scraps and stitched late into every night.

These weren't the usual collection of mismatched colors and patterns she'd used before. Masie looked through fabric; Maxwell told her which was right. The old honeyed peach that had once been Mama's dress would serve nicely now as Maxwell's face and feet and hands. The old flannel bedsheets with the blue flower print made him a shirt that matched the color of the buttons that were eyes. Masie's old denim jumper and Richard's brown corduroys made pants and shoes. Masie cut the hair from the one 'real' doll she had, and glued it strand by strand to Maxwell's head, and he was done.

He was tall, a little taller than she. Now he had dimples and a firm, straight line of a nose. His eyes were the same blue buttons, but she'd added eyebrows now. His mouth curved up in a sort of smirk. She thought it suited his voice. She showed him to Mama and Richard of course. Richard wasn't interested; Mama looked a little scared.

"I think it's time to stop, Masie Jane. Time to put up the dolls and get on with your life. There's no kind of living to be made making toys out of scraps."

It was easy to agree with Mama. What she said always made sense. It was harder, so much harder, to get Maxwell to listen. "She's just jealous, Masie Jane. She doesn't want you to be with me."

Masie laughed. "Don't be silly. Mama's not jealous of you."

"She doesn't want you to know."

"Know what?" Masie closed her book. "I think you're the jealous one, Maxwell. I think you're jealous of us."

It was eerie the way his expression could change sometimes. How that lopsided smirk could turn into a nasty smile, and how the thread that held the buttons in place could shine like the light in an eye. Masie fought off a shiver. "Anyway, it's time for bed."

"You sleep well, Masie girl. You have good dreams tonight." Max was tucked up on the rocker and for the first time, Masie felt relieved. Sometimes he insisted on sleeping with her. She didn't want that tonight.

"Good night, Max. Sleep good. I'll see you in the morning."

As happens to all girls, Masie's interests began to change. She remade old friends at school. Her dolls sat waiting by her bed. She went to movies and to parties and on weekend shopping trips. Her bags of scraps sat unsorted, her sewing machine untouched.

That's not to say that Maxwell was ignored. He became her confidant. He was there for comfort when she came home with her very first B. He was the first to know that she was there when Jacob Silver wrecked his car. He told her which clothes to wear to school, and she talked with him every night until she fell asleep.

But the night that Martin Collins asked her to the junior prom, Masie picked up Maxwell and opened up her trunk. "It's time for me to grow up," she said. "I can't talk to you anymore. Adults don't keep dollies. The dollies certainly don't talk back."

"You don't want to do this," Maxwell argued. He was heavy in Masie's arms. "If you put me in that trunk, you'll be sorry. I promise you." He was quiet, like he was thinking, then he added, "You'll miss me too much."

"I won't miss you," she said and tried to smile a little. "If I want you, I'll come and get you. It's not like I'm throwing you away."

"Have it your way, Masie. I'll be a good boy and wait."

She was as gentle as she could be, folding Maxwell into the trunk. She tucked his arms across his chest and tried not to bend his legs too much. "I'm sorry if I hurt you. I don't want to make this bad."

Maxwell didn't answer.

Not that night, and not the next. When Masie came home from school, she took him out, sat him in the rocker, and told him about her day. It was guilt, mostly, that made her do it, but Maxwell didn't speak. He sat there, mum and staring, just like the doll he was.

There were nights when she nearly left him there, buried in the trunk. She'd perch on the lid with her legs crossed Indian-style, put her chin in her hand, and think. "I don't know why I bother. Obviously you're mad at me. I haven't done anything wrong. There's nothing wrong with having other friends. There's nothing wrong with Martin Collins. It's not my fault that you don't agree. There's no way you could understand."

But in the end she took him out and put him in the rocker every night.

She left him out, the night of the dance. She wore a pretty purple dress and white roses in her hair. She did a little pirouette, hoping for a word of approval, but getting none, she kissed his cheek, and headed for the door. "I'll be home late, so don't wait up. I'll tell you about it tomorrow."

The dance was magical. It was a perfect night. Martin was handsome in his tidy tux. The corsage of white roses fit well around her wrist. The band played popular music, no one spiked the punch, and the kiss Martin stole on Mama's front porch was tender and gentle and perfect.

But when she got inside, into her room, the magic was torn away. Maxwell slumped in tatters, stuffing spilling to the floor. It was as if his seams had burst open from some unexplainable force. One arm dangled, almost empty, and a blue-button eye was gone. Hanks of his hair had been torn from his head and one foot was completely off.

Mama came running when she screamed.

"What'd you do to him," Masie demanded. "Who's been in my room?"

"No one, Masie, no one. I don't know how this could be. Richard's off at a friend's house, and I've been reading all night. No one's been here at all. Not a single soul."

"Get out," Masie railed. "Get out, get out, get *out*! Leave me alone, let us be." She crushed Maxwell to her chest. "I'll make it right."

So once more she stayed up all night, tucking stuffing where it belonged, and painstakingly re-stitching seams. She found the lost button eye, and tacked it back in place. She snipped a lock of her own hair, almost the same shade as that still on his head, and laid it down to replace the hank that had been lost.

Her fingers tingled and her shoulders ached. Her eyes were swollen and red. By the time she got the last bit of sewing done, the night was half gone and Masie needed sleep. Rather than forcing him to spend a night in the trunk, she tucked Maxwell into bed beside her, curled her arms around him hard and drifted to sleep.

In her dreams, everything was fine. No, not fine. It was real. He was real. Maxwell was no longer a doll, cotton batting and scraps of clothing, and buttons for eyes. He was a boy, a young man, with bright blue eyes and dimples in his cheeks. Masie wept for joy and kissed him happily.

Maxwell kissed her back. It wasn't the way Martin Collins kissed. It was warmer, sweeter. A kiss that tingled to her toes. More kisses followed, and though somehow she knew it was wrong, Masie didn't protest when Maxwell pushed her nightshirt away.

Martin Collins left town when the news about Masie got out. No matter how many times they swore that Martin wasn't to blame, nobody would believe them. The Army wasn't for Martin; Masie couldn't tell the truth. So Martin left. He hardly looked at her when he came to say goodbye.

Mama took sick and had to be moved to a home where nurses could watch her every day. Richard fell in with a bad crowd and was gone more often than home.

Masie sat and knitted, and kept the house as best she could. When she visited Mama, she'd comb her hair, and help her paint her nails. She never mentioned Maxwell, and she never brought any dolls.

When it got hard to hold Mama because Masie's belly had gotten big, Masie remembered words from long ago. "It's not because I don't love you, Mama. It just means I can't hug you as tight."