Vintage Peter Pumpkin Eater Valentine Card - Early 1900s

How exactly did 'Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater' go from being about imprisonment to outsourced romance? Here's a small boy in knickerbockers and a belted tunic scaling a comically oversized pumpkin to plant a kiss on a girl who is perched — quite willingly, disturbingly — on top of it like a gourd throne. The ornate Victorian lettering spells out 'Said Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater, Most charming Valentine, My love for you grows deep and deeper Since first I made you mine,' which is either the most on-the-nose Valentine in history or a confession to squash-based kidnapping. To truly express 'I cherish you,' apparently the move is to reference a nursery rhyme about a man who literally kept his wife in a vegetable, yet here we are, with a heart-shaped 'For Valentine' signature completing this masterpiece of cheerful red-flag propaganda.