Right, that part of it was clear to me from the beginning, and I'm not having trouble with the terminal numbers or the color of the wires -- the cut off pieces of the original wires are still attached to the push button. It's just that silly wire spliced into the green solenoid wire (it could just as well have been attached to the solenoid-side teminal of the push button) that has me baffled. It's only six inches long, so not long enough to reach the coil to get around a ballast, as George suggests, and it was clearly attached to the regular switch when I pulled the whole mess. I'll just hitch the push button up like you say, ignoring the spliced-in wire, and see what happens. Thanks guys,
Bob S.