The small town of 300 seemed so peaceful and happy, but as the story goes on to reveal the man vs. society conflict, we begin to see what blindly following tradition can do. As “The Lottery” starts off, its a beautiful summer day and school has just ended. Children run around collecting stones and putting them in their pockets, it is what appears to be innocent play. The stones are to be piled up in the town square, where the lottery will be held shortly. Parents chatter among each other, showing how well everyone in the town knows each other. As it nears closer to the time of the lottery, children are called over to gather with their families. On such a beautiful day, what is inevitably coming is hard to expect. Once everyone seem to be gathered and settled in, Mr. Summers, the man in charge of running the lottery arrives with the black box. This is not the original box used for the lottery, in fact the original box was lost many years ago. Not only does the town not have the original box, they don't use the original wood chips used to draw. Instead, they replaced them with pieces of paper despite tradition. As Mr. Summers is mixing up the slips of paper, a very flustered Tessie Hutchinson arrives to join the crowd due to her forgetting that this was the day the annual lottery took place. She is a beloved housewife of the town, but as she goes to join her family they are teased about her being late. This instantly sets her apart from the rest of the crowd. Old Man Warner, the eldest of the town claims that the stopping of the lottery is “nothing but trouble.” It was mentioned that there was a song and a salute, but those to were lost along time ago. For such a tradition to be so “important” it is hard to understand why so much of the tradition had been lost or forgotten without anybody seeming to care. Many people participate in the lottery because that's the norm, that's what everyone else does, or out of some kind of