Cass Edmonds

Cass' first name is actually McCaslin; he is named after his great-grandfather, "Old Carothers" McCaslin. In the novel's opening chapter Cass appears as the nine-year-old narrator of "Was," living on the McCaslin estate with his uncles Amodeus and Theophilus. Sixteen years older than his cousin Ike McCaslin, Cass becomes Ike's surrogate father after Ike’s father dies in 1879. Since Cass is descended from Old Carothers by the "distaff" (5) or female side of the family (his grandmother was Carothers McCaslin's daughter), Cass would not ordinarily inherit the McCaslin property. But when Ike McCaslin renounces that inheritance, his cousin Cass comes into possession of it, and in turn he bequeaths it to his son, Zachary Edmonds.