From paragraph 1:

. . the whole lottery took less than two hours, so it could begin at ten o’clock in the morning and still be through in time to allow villagers to get home for noon dinner.

from paragraph 10:

“well, now." mr. summers said soberly, "guess we better get started, get this over with, so we can go back to work.”

the underlined phrases set an ironic tone since they imply that

this june the lottery will be held in a less formal setting
this year’s drawing of names will be held in a less relaxed atmosphere
the current lottery will be less beneficial to everyone compared to last year’s
the community’s raffling of names will cause little interruption in its daily life