George Washington’s cherry
After the death of George Washington, a parson named Mason Locke Weems wrote a fanciful biography to illustrate that George had been the embodiment of the American dream, from a morally perfect childhood under principled parents, through an honourable (sorry, honorable) presidency to death, which was presumably inevitable even for ex-presidential semi-deity George.
One of the most famous apocryphal tales concerns little George and a cherry tree:
When George…was about six years old, he was made the wealthy master of a hatchet! of which, like most little boys, he was immoderately fond, and was constantly going about chopping everything that came in his way. One day, in the garden, where he often amused himself hacking his mother’s pea-sticks, he unluckily tried the edge of his hatchet on the body of a beautiful young English cherry-tree, which he barked so terribly, that I don’t believe the tree ever got the better of it. The next morning the old gentleman, finding out what had befallen his tree, which, by the by, was a great favourite, came into the house; and with much warmth asked for the mischievous author, declaring at the same time, that he would not have taken five guineas for his tree. Nobody could tell him anything about it. Presently George and his hatchet made their appearance. “George,” said his father, “do you know who killed that beautiful little cherry tree yonder in the garden?” This was a tough question; and George staggered under it for a moment; but quickly recovered himself: and looking at his father, with the sweet face of youth brightened with the inexpressible charm of all-conquering truth, he bravely cried out, “I can’t tell a lie, Pa; you know I can’t tell a lie. I did cut it with my hatchet.”—”Run to my arms, you dearest boy,” cried his father in transports, “run to my arms; glad am I, George, that you killed my tree; for you have paid me for it a thousand fold. Such an act of heroism in my son is more worth than a thousand trees, though blossomed with silver, and their fruits of purest gold.”
Now, call me a cold-blooded 21st-century cynic, but surely this isn’t a morality tale depicting an upstanding child, but the inevitable, pragmatic, calculated confession of a bark-stripper cornered cherry-red-handed?
Picture the scene: your father is steaming with rage, and you, fresh from some rudimentary tree-surgery around the garden, walk in, hatchet in hand, looking just as obsessed with finding something new to chop with it as you have for the last three days. Raging dad then pops the cherry tree question.
You “stagger under it for a moment”, considering that, aside from being covered in shards of cherry bark, you couldn’t really look more guilty. Has the young Washington got a lot of choice?
If we also take as truth his statement that he “can’t tell a lie” (if that was a lie, then we know that he can tell a lie and then we’ll be in dodgy logic puzzle territory and be forced to interrogate him with complicated many-negative questions which we can’t because it’s a made-up story and he’s dead), then his decision to tell daddy is even more cynical: not only does he already look guilty as Hell, but a poor attempt to cover it up with some slap-dash lying will only worsen matters, and to tidy things up he’ll have to go on a mad hatchet-on-human rampage to eliminate the witnesses and thus evade punishment, which I’m willing to speculate is below even our evidently depraved pres-to-be.
So all Parson Weems seems to have illustrated that tactical lack of deceit is within young Washy’s repertoire.
Kids: telling the truth can sometimes be a useful means to an end.
May 5th, 2006 at 22:02
You’re right - the moral high ground would have been his if he’d confessed before being confronted, but the story as it stands is the 18th century equivalent of “its a fair cop guv’nor, you got me banged to rights…”
May 10th, 2006 at 18:47
I reckon the moral of this story ought to be do not give a hatchet to someone who does not understand its potential. Hardy said “sometimes are impulses are too strong for our judgement!” It seems this could well be the case here!