Cherry-tree.

The story was published after his death to suggest the adult Washington's excellence of character, about which there is little dispute.

Supposedly it was told by a "distant relative."

Painter Grant Wood caught the spirit of the story in his amusing   "Parson Weems' Fable" (1939). It shows the writer Parson Weems, who published the story, drawing aside a curtain (with the hint of a smile) to reveal an unnaturally colorful and symmetrical but pleasing scene. And six-year-old George has the face of the grown-up President!