Since it is summer the children all come down to the meeting place, which was between the post office and the bank first. They weren't very long out of school, so the chatter between them usually was school related. Bobby Martin already jammed a few rocks into his pockets, while the others quickly followed suit. Harry and Bobby Jones, along with Dickie Delacroix started to make piles of stones in the corners. The girls just talked to themselves, and the really young ones played in the dust, or just tagged along with their older brothers. After this the men started to gather around the children. They were now talking about ".

The heads of families were to go up and draw first as was said by Mr. Summers, but most of the villagers had done this so many times, that they barely listened to the man. The drawing started, Mr. Adams was the first to go, and then all the way at the end Mr. Zanini took his paper. Everyone opened their paper, and then the noises started coming out of the crowd, everyone wanted to know who got the paper. Mr. Hutchinson had received the winner. Mrs. Hutchinson protested that the lottery was unfair, but then the slip was placed in the box along with the other three from the family. Bill Hutchinson was ready. A slip of paper was taken by Davy. Nancy, who was twelve, took her paper, and then Bill Jr. took his, Tessie Hutchinson took hers. Bill drew his last. Old Man Warner protested that it wasn't like the old days, and another girl stated that she hoped Nancy didn't win. Nancy and Bill Jr. opened there's and saw that they were blank. Bill opened his also, and a sigh came from the crowd as the blank paper was revealed. Bill forced the paper out of his wives hand, and saw that it had the dark mark on it. Although the original ritual was forgotten, the villagers did not forget about the stones. Mrs. Hutchinson cried out as a stone struck her on the side of her head. The villagers came upon her, and she screamed, " It ain't fair, it isn't right", but the crowd surrounded her now, hitting her with rocks from all sides.

As I started to read this story, I believed that it would be based on a modern lottery, such as we are used to, in which a person pays a dollar for a chance at millions, and this idea wasn't quickly abandoned. I could have never told you about what time period this was; because it was all very vague, this was purposely done, but left me wondering about the whole story. I used context clues, which said that they had a post office, and a bank, which made this story seem slightly more modern to me. As the crowd grew, I would have imagined everyone to be more solemn then they were, but the idea of a stoning never had crossed my mind, until I read through. I found it to be quite ironic, tha

Some common words found in the essay are:
Bill Jr, Martin Baxter, Tessie Hutchinson, Dickie Delacroix, Shirley Jackson, Adams Zanini, Jack Watson, Clyde Dunbar, Ms Jackson, Bobby Martin, bill jr, tessie hutchinson, protested lottery, slips paper, slip paper, office bank, dark mark, started gather, post office, post office bank,
Approximate Word count = 1422
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)