Mr. Summers runs the lottery, assisted by Mr. Graves. The night before the drawing the two men prepare slips for every household in the community--but not for every individual member of every household.
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.
There is only one slip with a black spot. All the other slips are blank. Mr. Summers reads the names of all the heads of households in alphabetical order. Each head of a household comes up and draws a slip from the black box. They are all drawing for their entire families.
In the first drawing the slip with the black spot is drawn by Bill Hutchinson. Now Mr. Summers collects all the slips from everybody present, including the one drawn by Bill Hutchinson.
Mr. Graves had selected the five slips and put them in the box. and he dropped all the papers but those onto the ground. where the breeze caught them and lifted them off.
Mr. Graves puts four blank slips into the box plus the one with the black spot which he took from Bill Hutchinson. Graves gets rid of all the other blank slips by letting them blow away in the breeze. He and Mr. Summers want to make sure there are no extra blank slips, because one of the members of the household selected in the initial drawing might pick one up and show it in place of the black spot if he or she got it.
There are five people in the Hutchinson household: Bill; his wife Tessie; Bill Jr. the oldest son; Nancy, who is about twelve years old; and little Davie, who is too young to understand what is going on. One by one the Hutchinsons draw from the box. Mr. Graves helps Davie draw a slip.
Mr. Graves opened the slip of paper and there was a general sigh through the crowd as he held it up and everyone could see that it was blank. Nancy and Bill. Jr. opened theirs at the same time. and both beamed and laughed. turning around to the crowd and holding their slips of paper above their heads.
Tessie has drawn a slip but is refusing to open it and show it to the crowd.
"Tessie," Mr. Summers said. There was a pause, and then Mr. Summers looked at Bill Hutchinson, and Bill unfolded his paper and showed it. It was blank.
Now everybody knows it must be Tessie, including Tessie herself, although she still refuses to open her slip.
"It's Tessie," Mr. Summers said, and his voice was hushed. "Show us her paper. Bill."
Tessie's husband has to use force against his wife.
Bill Hutchinson went over to his wife and forced the slip of paper out of her hand. It had a black spot on it, the black spot Mr. Summers had made the night before with the heavy pencil in the coal company office. Bill Hutchinson held it up, and there was a stir in the crowd.
This drawing is the same as the ones that have been conducted since time immemorial. There is an initial drawing for households, or families. In this patriarchal society, the men draw for their families in the first round. But when a family has been selected, all the family members, whether men, women or children, have to draw for themselves. There will be only one slip with a black spot, plus a number of blank slips which depends upon the number of people in the family. In the case of the Hutchinsons, each family member has a four-to-one chance of getting a blank slip. This is because none of them can open his or her slip until the whole family has drawn.
The reader still doesn't know what this lottery is all about--although the reader realizes that nobody wants to win the "prize," whatever it might be. On the other hand, everybody in the crowd, except for little Davie, knows exactly what the drawing is about. In fact, most of them have participated in these lotteries before and have stoned friends, relatives, and neighbors to death. Old Man Warner has been in the lottery for seventy-seven years, as he proudly proclaims.
The shocking nature of this annual ceremony is revealed very quickly when Tessie Hutchinson is exposed as the holder of the black spot.
Tessie Hutchinson was in the center of a cleared space by now, and she held her hands out desperately as the villagers moved in on her...."It isn't fair, it isn't right," Mrs. Hutchinson screamed, and then they were upon her.
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