George, I think you want to detect a pin going high when your button is pressed.
The circuit in Manual 3 suggests this.
Note the resistors.
The pin is held low (0v) through the 1k and 10k resistors to earth.
When the switch is pressed, the junction of the two resistors is taken to 5 volts. Note the 10k prevents a short circuit across your battey, and the 1k pulls the picaxe input pin up to 5 volts and limits the input current to a safe value.
Then as you say, your program would be 'if pin 1=1 then do something.
Hope that makes sense.
R.
Ah, beaten to it