Sentence:  Scarcity of paper caused many Southerners to adopt the practice of cross writing , i. e. , after writing from <WSD>left</WSD> to right of the page in the usual manner , they gave the sheet a half turn and wrote from end to end across the lines previously written . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  location near or direction toward the left side; i.e. the side to the north when a person or object faces east