Odd not Sod Couples

[Terrance Flaherty]

In the next few chapters I've noticed something odd. Dixon is very
careful not to touch Mason. Mason notices this and asks Dixon what's
going on.

Iron under the wagon. 

There is a lot of iron in America at this time. 
Oh, while I"m thinking of it. Who the hell is the RC talking about when
he complains about merchants making a million pounds? A million pounds
in America? Doesn't sound right to me. 

Work, at this time in America, was very lonely. Men worked alone or in
pairs. That is, unless you were working at a family business (most
business was small family business) or on a farm. About 80% of people
worked on farms. There is no cotton in America yet. 



The 'odd couples' do not fit this model, they are not hierarchical. One
of the pair may at times seize cunning advantage, but this is brief and
always reversible. It has nothing to do with any essential difference in
rank, wealth or fame. Neither partner is a lone hero and neither a
'sidekick or faithful retainer'.


... and Leslie Fiedler brilliantly examines the special case of black
and white pairs in the nineteenth-century American novel; Natty
Bumppo...

http://www.lib.latrobe.edu.au/AHR/archive/Issue-April-2001/livett.html