From pages 25-29, how does the author use structure to convey a sense of mystery, tension, or surprise?

Pages 25-29:

The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh
warmth of a full-summer day; the flowers were blossoming
profusely and the grass was richly green. The people of the village
began to gather in the square, between the post office and the bank,
around ten o'c1ock; in some towns there were so many people that
the lottery took two days and had to be started on June 26th, but
in this village, where there were only about three hundred people,
the whole lottery look less than two hours, so it could begin at ten
o'clock in the morning and still be through in time to allow the
villagers to get home for noon dinner.
The children assembled first, of course. School was recently
over for the summer, and the feeling of liberty sat uneasily on
most of them; they tended to gather together quietly for a while
before they broke into boisterous play, and their talk was still of the
classroom and the teacher, of books and reprimands. Bobby Martin
had already stuffed his pockets full of stones, and the other boys
soon followed his example, selecting the smoothest and roundest
stones; Bobby and Harry Jones and Dickie Delacroix-the villagers
pronounced this name "Dellacroy"-eventually made a great
pile of stones in one corner of the square and guarded it against
the raids of the other boys. The girls stood aside, talking among
themselves, looking over their shoulders at the boys, and the very
small children rolled in the dust or clung to the hands of their older
brothers or sisters.
Soon the men began to gather, surveying their own children,
speaking of planting and rain, tractors and taxes. They stood
together, away from the pile of stones in the corner, and their jokes
were quiet and they smiled rather than laughed. The women,
wearing faded house dresses and sweaters, came shortly after
their menfolk. They greeted one another and exchanged bits
of gossip as they went to join their husbands. Soon the women,
standing by their husbands, began to call to their children, and the
children came reluctantly, having to be called four or five times.
Bobby Martin ducked under his mother's grasping hand and ran,
laughing, back to the pile of stones. His father spoke up sharply,
and Bobby came quickly and took his place between his father and
his oldest brother.
The lottery was conducted-as were the square dances, the
teenage club, the Halloween program-by Mr. Summers, who had
time and energy to devote to civic activities. He was a round-faced,
jovial man and he ran the coal business, and people were sorry for
him, because he had no children and his wife was a scold. When
he arrived in the square, carrying the black wooden box, there
was a murmur of conversation among the villagers, and he waved
and called, "Little late today, folks." The postmaster, Mr. Graves,
followed him, carrying a three-legged stool, and the stool was put in
the center of the square and Mr. Summers set the black box down
on 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[1] 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 away, 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 approaching. Mr. Summers was
very good at all this; in his clean white shirt and blue jeans, with
one hand resting carelessly on the black box, he seemed very proper
and important as he talked interminably to Mr. Graves and the
Martins.
Just as Mr. Summers finally left off talking and turned to the
assembled villagers, Mrs. Hutchinson came hurriedly along the
path to the square, her sweater thrown over her shoulders, and slid
into place in the back of the crowd. "Clean forgot what day it was,"
she said to Mrs. Delacroix, who stood next to her, and they both
laughed softly. "Thought my old man was out back stacking wood,"
Mrs. Hutchinson went on, "and then I looked out the window
and the kids was gone, and then I remembered it was the twenty-
seventh and came a-running." She dried her hands on her apron,
and Mrs. Delacroix said, "You're in time, though. They're still
talking away up there."
Mrs. Hutchinson craned her neck to see through the crowd
and found her husband and children standing near the front. She
tapped Mrs. Delacroix on the arm as a farewell and began to make
her way through the crowd. The people separated good-humoredly
to let her through; two or three people said, in voices just loud
enough to be heard across the crowd, "Here comes your Missus,
Hutchinson," and "Bill, she made it after all." Mrs. Hutchinson
reached her husband, and Mr. Summers, who had been waiting,
said cheerfully, "Thought we were going to have to get on without you, Tessie." Mrs. Hutchinson said, grinning, "Wouldn't have me
leave m'dishes in the sink, now, would you, Joe?," and soft laughter
ran through the crowd as the people stirred back into position after
Mrs. Hutchinson's arrival.
"Well, now," Mr. Summers said soberly, "guess we better get
started, get this over with, so's we can go back to work. Anybody
ain't here?"
"Dunbar," several people said. "Dunbar, Dunbar."
Mr. Summers consulted his list. "Clyde Dunbar," he said.
"That's right. He's broke his leg, hasn't he? Who's drawing for him?"
"Me, I guess," a woman said, and Mr. Summers turned to look
at her. "Wife draws for her husband," Mr. Summers said. "Don't you
have a grown boy to do it for you, Janey?" Although Mr. Summers
and everyone else in the village knew the answer perfectly well, it
was the business of the official of the lottery to ask such questions
formally. Mr. Summers waited with an expression of polite interest
while Mrs. Dunbar answered.
"Horace's not but sixteen yet," Mrs. Dunbar said regretfully.
"Guess I gotta fill in for the old man this year."
"Right," Mr. Summers said. He made a note on the list he was
holding. Then he asked, "Watson boy drawing this year?"
A tall boy in the crowd raised his hand. "Here," he said. "I'm
drawing for m'mother and me." He blinked his eyes nervously
and ducked his head as several voices in the crowd said things like
"Good fellow, Jack," and "Glad to see your mother's got a man to
do it."
"Well," Mr. Summers said, "guess that's everyone. Old Man
Warner make it?"
"Here," a voice said, and Mr. Summers nodded.
A sudden hush fell on the crowd as Mr. Summers cleared his
throat and looked at the list. "All ready?" he called. "Now, I'll read
the names-heads of families first-and the men come up and take
a paper out of the box. Keep the paper folded in your hand without
looking at it until everyone has had a turn. Everything clear?"
The people had done it so many times that they only half
listened to the directions; most of them were quiet, wetting their
lips, not looking around. Then Mr. Summers raised one hand high
and said, "Adams." A man disengaged himself from the crowd and
came forward. "Hi, Steve," Mr. Summers said, and Mr. Adams said,
"Hi, Joe." They grinned at one another humorlessly and nervously.
Then Mr. Adams reached into the black box and took out a folded
paper. He held it firmly by one corner as he turned and went hastily
back to his place in the crowd, where he stood a little apart from his
family, not looking down at his hand.
"Allen," Mr. Summers said. "Anderson. . . . Bentham."