"Before she settled in the scrub country, Marjorie Rawlings had been a newspaperwoman in Louisville Kentucky, and Rochester New York. Tiring of a life that seemed "scrappy and always in a hurry," she turned her hand unsuccessfully to short-story writing. She had almost given up when, at 32, she used a small legacy to buy her 72-acre orange grove at Cross Creek. The people and the country inspired ...

"Before she settled in the scrub country, Marjorie Rawlings had been a newspaperwoman in Louisville Kentucky, and Rochester New York. Tiring of a life that seemed "scrappy and always in a hurry," she turned her hand unsuccessfully to short-story writing. She had almost given up when, at 32, she used a small legacy to buy her 72-acre orange grove at Cross Creek. The people and the country inspired ...