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Washington and the cherry tree "Parson"

Weems's version:

"George," said his father,"do vou know who killed that beau tiful little cherry tree yonder in the garden?

This was a tough question; and George staggered under it for a moment: but quickly re covered himself:and looking at his father, with the sweet fact of youth brightened with the inexpressible charm of all-con quering truth, he bravely cried out, "1 can't tell a lie. Pa; you know 1 can't tell a lie. 1 did cut it with my hatchet."

"Run to my arms, you dear est boy," cried his father in transports, "run to my arms; glad am 1, George, that you killed my tree; for you have paid me for it a thousand fold."

The tale of George Washington and the cherry tree which he chopped down — "Pa, you know I can't tell a lie... I did cut it with my hatchet" — is nothing more than that: a tale, a popular myth drummed into generations of schoolboys across the English-speaking world. There was no cherry tree and no tiny chopper.

The story was apparently con cocted by an itinerant book sales man turned author named "Par son" Mason Locke Weems whose biography of the US President was published directly after his death. It was saturated with talcs of Wash ington's selflessness and honesty, most of them invented for a reader ship devoted to the Bible Belt mo rality of the times.

Miguel may not have heard of George Washington — or of his hatchet,for that matter — but he has all the lumberjack instincts attrib uted to the first President of the United States... and our cottage in Cortes has half a dozen stumps of cherry trees and quince trees to prove it.

Miguel is a shepherd who runs his flock of 25sheep and (currently) 15 lambs on the hill which forms part of our property. He has been doing this for years and local tradi tion has it that in exchange for this privilege he should make an annual payment of a lamb.Instead, he pro vides us with copious quantities of firewood — much of it chopped from our own trees, 1 suspect with which to stoke our open fire.

He has also been around for so long that(a)he half believes that the place belongs to him and (b) when we came to buy it, he was the only person who knew where the boundaries of the property ran.The previous owner pointed to one set of (imaginary) markers, the estate agent to another... so that on a hot early summer's day Miguel led me, literally, up hill and down dale with a can of red spray paint.

The rocks and tree stumps which I splodged at his instructions cov ered a much bigger area than the first two had indicated... but also proved accurate to within a couple of square metres when — at our in stance — a qualified surveyor marked out the boundaries.

But his lumberjack pretensions remained hidden until early Janu ary when — having just arrived with two huge logs, which were far too heavy for him to have carried from the hill and may have been "liberated" from the neighbouring plot where he also exercises graz ing rights — he asked to borrow my petrol-driven band-saw.. to saw up the logs.

(It was the first time 1 had seen him in action with a saw — usually an already-sawn higgledy-piggledy heap of fuel waits our arrival in the middle of the muddy track which pretends to be our "drive".)

Miguel with a saw in his hands is a demon and his face creases in delight as the chain begins to whirr... In a matter of minutes the two huge logs were reduced to firefriendly pieces. Which was all very well... but there was a glint in his eye and 1 wondered at the wisdom of my wife's suggestion that 1 should show him the "orchard" where we had spent several days of the Christmas-New Year break clearing the undergrowth to find and prune a mini forest of fruit trees which clearly had not been pruned for years.

Eyes a-gleam, Miguel set the chain saw whirring."Malo" I think he said ponting to a well-estab lished cherry tree that 1 had spent several hours pruning. Such is my abysmal Spanish that 1 thought he was criticizing my efforts at arbo real husbandry. Not so.

Before I could stop him he had laid into the tree a few feet above the ground. Twigs and sawdust flew.Then he turned to another,and then another..

The manufacturers warn one about the dangers ofapproaching a moving chain-saw,and with a pos sible demented shepherd-turncdlumberjack handling the machine, discretion seemed wise. 1 stood back... and Miguel demolished three more trees.

I think he stopped only because the saw Ijecame blunt, though he had a contented smile on his face as he switched off the saw and handed it to me. He was still smiling as he strolled off clutching the bottle of single-malt whisky I had given him as a "Three Kings" present.

But as well as a scene reminiscent of those early World War 1 photo graphs of Delville Wood, he left be hind six stumps each protruding about a foot above the ground... at just the height one can trip over as soon as the grass has grown.

And 1 know the saw was blunted by his onslaught for next week end I'll have to cut them off by hand with a heavy-duty pruning saw. And as 1 do so, I'll wonder about Miguel...

Is it merely a coincidence that he lives next door to Paco the demon carpenter?