184 EVERYDAY ADVENTURES 
At last, we beached our canoe in a little grove and 
landed for lunch. By the edge of the smoky, golden 
cedar-water, in the pure white sand, was a deep 
footprint, like that made by a baby’s bare foot with 
a pointed heel. I recognized the hand and seal of 
Lotor, the Washer, who believes firmly in that old 
proverb about cleanliness. That is about as near, 
however, as Lotor ever gets tc godliness. He is the 
grizzled-gray raccoon, who wears a black mask on 
his funny, foxy face, and has a ringed tail shaped like 
a baton, and sets his hind feet flat, like his second- 
cousin the bear, while his menu-card covers almost as 
wide a range. Whatever he eats — frogs, crawfish, 
chicken, and even fresh eggs and snakes — he always 
washes. Two, three, and even four times, he rinses 
and rubs his food if he can find water. 
That footprint in the sand carried me back more 
years than I like to count. It was on the same kind 
of fall day that I first entered the fastnesses of Rolfe’s 
Woods. First there came Little Woods, close at 
home, where one could play after school, and where 
the spotted leaves of the adder’s-tongue grew every- 
where. Then came Big Woods, which required a 
full Saturday afternoon to do it justice. It was there 
that I accumulated by degrees the twenty-two 
spotted turtles, the five young gray squirrels, and the 
three garter-snakes, which gladdened my home. 
Far beyond Big Woods was a wilderness of swamps 
and thickets known to us as Rolfe’s Woods. This was 
only to be visited in company with some of the big 
boys and on a full holiday. That day, Boots Lock- 
