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​Farmer Iggy watched—in absolute horror—as she began to cough up blood and phlegm. Her mouth became caked with vile-smelling fluid. Her stomach bulged, convulged, quivered, and then expanded—she hadn't even been pregnant moments earlier, but suddenly it looked as though she were filled to bursting with a brood of offspring! The whole affair, the whole mess of it, however... it wasn't in any way wonderful or miraculous. It was wrong, somehow terrible, and Farmer Iggy found himself backing away from the convulsing animal—“Oh, oh no, oh Mama, w-what... what did I do to you? Mama?!” ​The scream that emerged from Mama Rabbit's mouth as she fell over onto her side was that of a fully-grown human woman. A chill froze the farmer's spine, and then he turned around and fled into his house, leaving his beloved prize rabbit to cough, convulse, and die, in the dust and the grass of the rabbit hutch. He knew—he knew she was gone; how could she not be, with what he had seen? But, had he had the courage to remain outside and be with Mama Rabbit in her final moments, he would have witnessed the impossible—a bittersweet miracle. For, as Mama Rabbit breathed her final breaths, she actually did give birth to—not one—but two little baby rabbit kittens. ​The first one was big and white, with odd black markings about its face and hindquarters. It looked in every respect like a healthy young rabbit kit, conceived in the usual way, and born after the appropriate term—neither of which, of course, it had been. However, had it resulted from any other circumstances, and had Farmer Iggy been there to see it, he might have regarded it as a fine prize: an obviously exceptional young rabbit, even by the standards he'd come to have set for Mama Rabbit's kits. ​The second rabbit was small, a runt. It was pure white, without a marking on it, and it looked soft, beautiful, and gentle—until it opened its eyes.
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