Les Bryan was ten years old in 1926 (he would be turning eleven in December) and wasn’t afraid of work. His family lived at 4148 Gladstone in South Vancouver just down the way from a tiny grocery store perched on the south-east corner of Gladstone and 25th Avenue. The word "tiny" might still be too grandiose a word to described accurately this establishment where the front door took up a goodly portion of its total width and the depth did not add much to the total square footage that was stocked with those things that homemakers of the day deemed necessary in an emergency. The only thing big about Miss Pridam’s commercial enterprise was Miss Pridam herself. This very large women seldom moved from her seated vantage point where she watched her customers searching within one of the earliest "self service" stores known in the neighbourhood. The only real time Miss Pridam moved her massive body was to serve up mounds of hard ice cream atop pointed cones – a favourite confection of children and adults alike.

Les’s first real paying job outside the family realm was delivering groceries for Miss Pridam after school and on Saturdays. Six days a week he would report to his large employer, load up his arms with bags and carry groceries by foot to customer’s homes. At the end of the six days when the work was complete, Miss Pridam would count out thirty-five cents and one by one place the coins in the young boy’s hand. Ten cents would pay to see one of the silent films at the local theatre while most of the balance was carefully tucked away with his dreams of owning a bicycle. Once, before the week was complete, Les asked Miss Pridam if he might be paid ten cents early so that he could go to a show with his friends. Heaving her great bulk in an authoritative move she told Les to sit down and proceeded to tell him the sins of asking for advancements and the terrible sins of credit. Her heavy thick arms moved in sincere animation, her jowls shook as she emphasised the disgust she felt for those who lacked thrifty ways and her little eyes looking out from heavy folds closed with hopeful resolve that she might save this misguided young employee before he went astray. So eager was her mission that she had Les sit there and listen for half an hour before she set him free .... without the ten cent advancement.

Mr. Watson, the rose man, was a regular delivery stop for Les and periodically Les would collect the amount of money Mr. Watson owed to Miss Pridam and take it back to the store through his regular short cut under the train trestle. Twenty dollars was an awful lot of money to be represented by just one paper bill. Les was glad to be back at the store to turn such a responsibility over to the owner when he reached in his pocket and found nothing. Nothing! Surely it must be in the other pocket. No. A wave of sickness overtook his stomach and his body became so hot that he felt like Miss Pridam on a hot day when perspiration would seep out of her hairline and roll down the backside of her round cheek.

"Oh! Now what do I do? What am I going to do!" A search of the pockets again produced the same results. Nothing. "How, at thirty-five cents a week will I ever repay it all? She will think I stole it!"

In frantic despair Les turned and began to retraced his steps. "Twenty dollars!" He ran towards Mr. Watson’s. "If it dropped out of my pocket someone will have surely found it. I’ll never get it back. How will I tell Mrs. Pridam!" His fear could not even begin to imagine her outrage. "And how will I tell Mr. Watson? Such a nice man and now I’ve lost his money!" Scrambling down towards the trestle Les’s eyes darted from side to side looking desperately. Looking straight ahead on the pathway under the trestle. "There! It’s there!" In fear of the wind blowing it away or a phantom figure snatching it before his grasp, Les pounced upon the paper treasure and held tight while the rapid beating of his heart returned to a relatively normal pounding and the shade of the trestle cooled his hot skin.

Realizing his good fortune, the precious cargo was held firmly within a tight fist and the fist with the twenty dollar bill was in turn pushed solidly to the bottom of his pocket and stayed there while the other arm swung determinedly back towards the little store and to Miss Pridam who remained unaware of the drama that had just unfolded. If she took thirty minutes teaching the lesson of a sinful ten cent advanced credit, there was no telling how long her lecture might be on the sin of losing someone else’s twenty dollars. "We will just consider it a lesson learned!"

Mr. Watson also never learned of the drama but became instrumental in the purchase of Les’s bicycle. One day when Les was delivering more groceries, Mr. Watson asked if he would like to make some extra money. What Mr. Watson needed was peat moss in which to pack his roses. Peat moss was available for the picking in the bog around Trout Lake. Mr. Watson would pay one dollar per sack and nine sacks would do nicely. The sacks were about as big as Les himself, but nine dollars towards a bicycle and the freedom it would bring was a great motivator. Les indeed filled the sacks and hauled them back to Mr. Watson. With the last sack delivered, Les took the nine dollars along with his other savings and purchased his two-wheeler.

Les never forgot his lessons, he continued to live by these high standards and passed on such values to his children. Indeed, as an adult, Les enjoyed the convenience of paying for purchases by credit card; but never unless he already had the money in his bank account. The only two items to be bought on credit were a home and a car. Mrs. Pridam would be proud!

A story written by Sherrie Thorne based on a story told to her by her father, Les Bryan, February 2002.  Story approved by Les.