it. The villagers kept their distance, leaving a space between themselves and the stool. And when Mr. Summers said, Some of you fellows want to give me a hand? There was a hesitation before two men, Mr. Martin and his oldest son, Baxter, came forward to hold the box steady on the stool while Mr. Summers stirred up the papers inside it.
The original paraphernalia for the lottery had been lost long ago, and the black box now resting on the stool had been put into use even before Old Man Warner, the oldest man in town, was born. Mr. Summers spoke frequently to the villagers about making a new box, but no one liked to upset even as much tradition as was represented by the black box. There was a story that the present box had been made with some pieces of the box that had preceded it, the one that had been constructed when the first people settled down to make a village here. Every year, after the lottery, Mr. Summers began talking again about a new box, but every year the subject was allowed to fade off without anything s being done.
The black box grew shabbier each year: by now it was no longer completely black but splintered badly along one side to show the original wood color, and in some places faded or stained.
Mr. Martin and his oldest son, Baxter, held the black box securely on the stool until Mr. Summers had stirred the papers thoroughly with his hand. Because so much of the ritual had been forgotten or discarded, Mr. Summers had been successful in having slips of paper substituted for the chips of wood that had been used for generations. Chips of wood, Mr. Summers had argued. Had been all very well when the village was tiny, but now that the population was more than three hundred and likely to keep on growing, it was necessary to use something that would fit more easily into the black box. The night before the lottery, Mr. Summers and Mr. Graves made up the slips of paper and put them in the box, and it was then taken to the safe of Mr. Summers coal company and locked up until Mr. Summers was ready to take it to the square next morning. The rest of the year, the box was put way, sometimes one place, sometimes another; it had spent one year in Mr. Graves s barn and another year underfoot in the post office. And sometimes it was set on a shelf in the Martin grocery and left there.
There was a great deal of fussing to be done before Mr. Summers declared the lottery open. There were the lists to make up of heads of families, heads of households in each family, members of each household in each family. There was the proper swearing-in of Mr. Summers by the postmaster, as the official of the lottery; at one time, some people remembered, there had been a recital of some sort, performed by the official of the lottery, a perfunctory. tuneless chant that had been rattled off duly each year; some people believed that the official of the lottery used to stand just so when he said or sang it, others believed that he was supposed to walk among the people, but years and years ago this part of the ritual had been allowed to lapse. There had been, also, a ritual salute, which the official of the lottery had had to use in addressing each person who came up to draw from the box, but this also had changed with time, until now it was felt necessary only for the official to speak to each person
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Old man Warner has been doing the lottery for awhile how come he has still not won the lottery.
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they are very traditional people using a black box every time.
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why did the people move from chips of wood to paper
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they have used it for a long time and was a tradition
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they did not want it to break and wanted old man to draw
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they had to say ritual to each persons name they drew.
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They seem so scared of the box.
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They were scared because they knew that the winner would die because they have been doing it for so long.
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I can assume that they are scared of what is going on, or nervous.
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The people kept their distance from the stool because they felt threatened.
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why are people seeming so scared of this box and the stool?
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they seem scared of the box
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Mabey Mr.Martin and his son Baxter were sceptical.
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why were they scared though?
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This tells me the lottery is a long tradition.
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why does the stool has three legs?
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I would stand up for the women and change the tradishion so that women can draw.
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Lottery is a long tradition
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No one liked the idea of a new black box
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Mabey Mr.Summers is repeating something so the towns people would not forget something
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None of the people like to draw from the box
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m
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The black box has a history and maybe it is a thing that has gone on for a long time before this.
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They don’t want a new box and they want to stick with the one they have now.
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Mr.Summers was talking about a new box and the people did not like the idea of a new box.
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This tells me that the ritual is pretty old.
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This means that the tradition of the black box has gone on for a long time.
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wh does it really have to be a black box, how old is the box?
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They are scared to help Mr.Summers.
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i feel he was sucsessful because of the lottery
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How did they forget the original ritual?
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they have a really small town so they most likely know everything.
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That’s kinda weird that the box was left in a grocery store.
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What kind of ritual do they mean?
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the lottery was a tradition for a very long time
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they thought that if they took something out of the traditions so they would not upset the spirts
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i wanna know why their so scared and hesitated to hold the box? is there something inside the box?
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