You remember how in The Long Winter Laura and Carrie are in school and a blizzard comes and they all look each other in a worried way because they know they have to get home but they also know they will get lost in the snow if they leave the school house so maybe they should stay inside and burn the furniture until the blizzard is over in three days but then someone from town comes and tells them to follow him and so they go out into the snow even though they know its a bad idea because people get lost in blizzards all the time but they try to head for town and almost get lost but then Laura runs into the corner of a building and yells really loud for everyone to come back because she has found town and then everyone is in town and Laura and Carrie are home and when they take off their mufflers they are frozen solid with ice and even when Laura is sitting by the fire she is too cold to think and when she wipes her eyes her hand has blood on it because the ice cut her eyes because they were out in the snow?

Illinois is a lot like that.