When an elderly person in Missouri, as elsewhere in the South, has a character that wins the reverent and petting love and esteem of everybody, big and little, in a community, then by the common voice that person is raised to the peerage, so to speak, and is called Uncle or Aunt by all the populace. It is the highest title of honor and affection, and the most gracious, that is known to the South. Negroes get it by mere age, and then it does not mean a great deal; but with the white it is the assayer’s stamp upon the golden ingot of character, and stands for a thousand carats fine.

(From the Morgan Library edition of Pudd'nhead Wilson)