Read the excerpts from Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy. Excerpt 1:

Turner shifted the pail of clams to his other hand, and they followed the curve of the beach past the schoolhouse—the trimmest building on the island—past more shingled one-room homes . . .

Excerpt 2:

"We tried educating them. We built a school and hired a teacher, all at the town's expense. But that didn't do a single bit of good. . . . There will be those in town who insist that we should keep the school up, that we should spend even more money than we have from the town treasury on other schemes well-intentioned but foolish.”

The schoolhouse reveals that the story takes place in the distant past because it is

well cared for by the townspeople.
the only building by the beach.
very close to the people’s homes.
the only one for all the island’s students.