What does the reader learn about the background and setting of the story from the first four paragraphs of the text?

We learn that it is a small place that is poor. It is hot and dusty and dishevelled. When I think of the hometown of my youth, all that I seem to remember is dust—the brown, crumbly dust of late summer—

Lizabeth grew up in rural Maryland. The whole town was a picture of poverty and dust.