Free A Spotlight for Harry by Eric A. Kimmel

“H urry, Dash!” Harry Weiss called to his younger brother. “Can’t you all go any faster? We’re never going to get good seats if we don’t hurry. We may even miss the whole show!”
    “Slow down, Ehrich! You too, Dezso,” Rabbi Weiss told the boys. “The show doesn’t start for an hour. Besides, how do you expect Mama to run when she has to walk with Leopold and carry Gladys? We’ll get therein plenty of time, and we’ll have wonderful seats.”
    Harry and Dash stopped to wait for their family. “Trust me,” their father went on. “Nobody knows better than Mayer Samuel Weiss how to get good seats at the circus. Who knows? If life had turned out differently, I might have been a circus performer myself. Can you see me as a lion tamer? Or a trapeze artist flying through the air high above the center ring? I’ve never missed a circus in my life, even when I was a boy in Hungary.”
    “And now that you’re a grown man and a rabbi in America, you still act like a boy when the circus comes to town,” said Mrs. Weiss. She carried Harry and Dash’s little sister in her arms. Their younger brother, Leopold, toddled along beside her, holding tightly on to her hand.
    Rabbi Weiss and his family were importantmembers of the small, but growing, Jewish community in Appleton, Wisconsin. Like many new immigrants, Rabbi and Mrs. Weiss spoke little English. Rabbi Weiss’s Saturday-morning sermons at the synagogue were in German. German was the main language the Weiss family spoke at home. They all spoke German now, on their way to the circus.
    The two older boys, Harry and Dash, spoke German with their parents. However, between themselves, they spoke English. Although they had been born in Hungary, they thought of themselves as Americans. They gave themselves American names.
    Ehrich’s nickname at home was Ehri. At school, it became Harry. Dezso easily became Dash.
    Their American names suited them perfectly. The boys never stood still. Especially Harry. He was always in a hurry to explorenew ideas, rushing off to new adventures with Dash close behind.
    The circus was the greatest adventure of all. True to his word, Rabbi Weiss had found seats for the whole family. They were three rows back from the center ring. Harry and Dash could see everything.
    Leopold and baby Gladys giggled at theclowns. They jumped with excitement when the elephants paraded around in a circle. Harry’s parents clapped for the glittering circus horses and their riders. A girl in a white spangled dress did handstands and somersaults on the back of a pony as it cantered around the center ring. She was hardly older than Harry and Dash.

    “How that little girl can ride! Simply wonderful!” Rabbi Weiss exclaimed in German as horses and riders took a bow.
    Harry couldn’t see what his parents were so thrilled about. “They’re just horses, Papa. What’s so special about jumping on and off a horse?”
    “My own son doesn’t like horses? Where have I failed?” Rabbi Weiss replied. He pretended to be deeply disappointed.
    “Don’t feel bad, Mayer,” Mrs. Weiss said. “It can’t be helped. We’re Hungarians. Harry’s an American boy. No American can ever love horses the way Hungarians do.”
    “I suppose you’re right, Cecelia,” Rabbi Weiss said with a sigh.
    Harry knew his parents were teasing him. He didn’t mind. They missed the Old Country in a way that their children could never understand.
    But that’s past
, Harry thought.
Why waste time thinking about long ago when the future is so exciting?
    And nothing was more exciting than a tightrope walker! That’s what Harry and Dash had been waiting to see ever since the circus posters went up all over Appleton.
    Harry had pulled down one of the posters to keep. He stuck it on the wall of the room he and Dash shared.
    Harry loved looking at that poster. The picture gave him goose bumps. It showed a man in white tights walking high above the crowd. All that stood between him and the