ARLINGTON — Dr. Alan Erickson got his toothbrush back.

It wasn’t just any ol’ toothbrush. It was an eight-foot toothbrush that the dentist’s brother had made as a Christmas present one year. A shipwright named Dave McFadden made it out of yellow cedar, Sitka spruce and two brooms, Erickson told the Stillaguamish Valley School forestry class that found it and returned it to him. “This toothbrush could never be duplicated because the shipwright moved away.”

He told the students his brother always gives him something silly every year, adding, “One year he gave me a thousand golf balls.”

He explained how he felt when the toothbrush disappeared off the front of his office. “You know how mad it makes you feel when someone steals something from you,” Erickson told the students.

He said he realized the students could have left the odd thing where they found it in the woods or even taken it home. Instead, they took the time to bring it back to school and find its proper owner. The toothbrush was installed on the front porch of his office after a remodel created the perfect location for it four years ago. It disappeared about two months ago.

“I really appreciate you for making this decision,” Erickson said. “You were curious and honest enough to bring it back.”

“It was Micah Reinsma who found it,” said Cameron Vandermeersche. “I was working out there, too, but it was Micah who noticed it.”

“We were working on the trail that we are building to the Eagle Creek wetlands,” Vandermeersche explained.

Erickson presented the teacher of the class, Andy Jones, a check for $200 and a basket of goodies, not including candy, to show his appreciation to the students.

“I had totally written off finding the thing,” Erickson said. “Thanks to the integrity of you students, I can now put it back up. I will definitely have to figure out a better way to attach it.”

“This just proves that good things yield good things,” Jones told the class.