To answer Ms. Lurie's question yesterday about the abandoned instrument
she found on the street; It could be a Square Piano, which "looks like
a table when closed".  But these are massive things, as big as a
dining-room table, and the strings are easily visible with the lid up.

It seems more likely from her description, that she found a melodeon.
Pictures of some examples can be seen on the Melodeon page of the New
England Organ Works website:

    http://www.reston.com/OrganWorks/portfolio.melodeon.html

Links from this site will give her all the information she needs about
melodeons and other reed organs.

The term melodeon is somewhat loosely used, meaning different things
depending on what historical period is referred to, and where in the
speaker comes from; but in this case I mean a reed organ in a shallow
box-like case, on legs, with an open bottom, rather than a solid case
extending to the floor.  Often the legs are a removable cast-iron frame,
like a sewing machine stand.

The exhauster bellows (or feeder bellows for the earliest pressure
models) are mounted horizontally on the underside of the case, and are
worked by rods or bands extending downwards to narrow pedals near the
floor.  Some models have only one bellows, actuated by the left foot;
the other pedal works the swell shutter.

Richard Vance