Besides, Don had something to worry about just then, something so acute that it could not be shared with another worry. His pitching was undergoing violent assault. He was sure he had plenty of stuff on the ball. Nevertheless, the rival team was lacing his best efforts to all parts of the field.
The end of the game returned him a loser.
"Can't win them all," Ted Carter said philosophically. "They seemed to hit everything today, Tim, didn't they?"
"Everything," said Tim. He took his sweater from the bench and started for home.
Don had a notion to follow. Instead, after a moment, he walked off with several of the players. So long as Tim was losing his scrappiness, what was the use of fussing over him? Probably by tomorrow, or Monday, whatever was biting him would have stopped, and he would come around to discuss the ifs of the contest, and the what-might-have-happened. It occurred to Don, vaguely, that he had not yet heard Tim say a word about what had happened at Lonesome Woods.
Tim did not come around—neither on Monday nor Tuesday. Wednesday Don met him at the field for the regular mid-week practice.
"Where have you been keeping yourself, Tim?"
"No place."
"You haven't been around since—"
"No," Tim broke in bitterly, "and I'm not coming around. Nobody can make a booby out of me twice."