What clues does the author provide to help the reader determine the time and place of the story?

We know that the setting is old and pastoral. The language also reflects the era of the 1880s.

"Know what that is, all around us, Winnie? …Life. Moving, growing, changing, never the same two minutes together. This water, you look out at it every morning, and it looks the same, but it ain't. All night long it's been moving, coming in through the stream back there to the west, slipping out through the stream down east here, always quiet, always new, moving on."