That is, they were moderate up to a certain date, and even then they did not directly attack him--there was nothing cold--blooded about it at all.

The thing was forced upon them, and, though they all felt pleased and uplifted--while it was happening--they did not understand precisely why.
Nothing could more clearly prove their innocence of heart than this very ignorance, and yet none of the grown people who later felt themselves concerned in the matter was able to look at it in that light.

Now, here was a characteristic working of those reactions that produce what is sometimes called "the injustice of life", because the grown people were responsible for the whole affair and were really the guilty parties.
It was from grown people that Georgie Bassett learned he was a boy set apart, and the effect upon him was what alienated his friends.

Then these alienated friends were brought (by odious comparisons on the part of grown people) to a condition of mind wherein they suffered dumb annoyance, like a low fever, whenever they heard Georgie's name mentioned, while association with his actual person became every day more and more irritating.

And yet, having laid this fuse and having kept it constantly glowing, the grown people expected nothing to happen to Georgie.
The catastrophe befell as a consequence of Sam Williams deciding to have a shack in his backyard.