1920s Valentine Die-Cut Cherub Candy Pop Greeting Card

Why is a chubby-cheeked toddler with rosy blush circles and suspiciously red lips clutching a heart-adorned box while perched in a wheeled cart decorated with hearts, with a comically oversized red heart looming behind them like a sentient threat? The cart's pull handle extends outward with the casual energy of a child who fully expects you to haul them around while also accepting their emotional baggage. Manufactured by E. Rosen Company of Providence, RI — a city that apparently had zero concerns about packaging existential romantic despair as children's candy — the card's text 'Please take my heart that goes ker-flop / With this delicious Candy Pop' manages to combine cardiac distress, food bribery, and baby vulnerability into one tidy Valentine's proposition. The fence in the background adds a vaguely institutional quality, as if this rosy infant has escaped from somewhere and is now aggressively lobbying for your affections from a heart wagon.